INTRODUCTION

This is a common dish in my house and is not invented by me. I first knew that bitter gourd blends well with salted eggs when my brother in law invited us to his house for dinner at least more than 10 years ago. I am sure then, there is no craze about salted egg like now.

If you Goggle salted egg bitter gourd, there will be lots of recipe and i can assure that these recipes are not new and must have been a rather traditional dish in the Greater China regions. However, I am unsure why this dish is not common in Singapore and Malaysia..

Since the day we dined at my brother in law’s house, this is a rather common bitter gourd dish for my house. Our family loves bitter gourd be it in soup, stew or stir fry. Since i am cooking this dish, I thought I might as well share this recipe with readers.

This is a very short and simple recipe using 2 main ingredients with only 2 basic steps. You have a choice to use the whole salted egg or just salted egg yolks alone. You also have a choice using cooked salted eggs or raw salted eggs. Cooked salted eggs will provide you a more creamy effect than the raw salted eggs. For me, I prefer to have bits of salted egg yolk to bite and not wholly become a sauce.

WHAT IS REQURIED

Servings: 4-6 adult servings

• 2 salted egg yolks or 1 salted whole eggs
• 1 medium size bitter gourd
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• Pinches of salt
• Dashes of white pepper
• Sugar or chicken stock to taste

STEPS OF PREPARATION

• Slice open the bitter gourd and dig out all the seeds. Ensure the white membranes are scrap off as that is where the bitterness comes from. Slice thinly of about 2 mm thickness.

• Heat up a pot of hot water, put pinches of salt, bring to boil. Once the water boils, drop the sliced bitter gourd to the hot boiling water. Let it blanch for 2-3 minutes to get rid of the raw smell and the bitterness. Drain and set aside. If you like the bitter gourd to be very soft, you can blanch longer. 2-3 minutes is for a rather crunchy texture after stir frying but that also depend on the thickness.

• Mash the raw egg yolk or cooked egg yolk as fine as possible. Cooked egg yolk will made the sauce finer but there is not bit to bite. Raw egg yolk will provide some bits to bite.

• Heat up a wok with 2 tablespoons of oil.  Sauté the garlic under high heat until fragrance. Add the mashed salted egg yolk or whole egg, and stir fry for one minute. You will witness there are lots of bubble in the wok which is ok, add the blanched bitter gourd, stir fry for 2-3 minutes until well mixed and flavour developed. Before offing the heat, add dashes of white pepper, sugar or chicken stock to taste, stir until well combined. Dish up and best served hot immediately from the wok.

CONCLUSION

If you are a bitter gourd lover, you may want to give this simple dish a try. Remember the bitterness stems from the white membrane. If you can cut off the white membrane, it will be much less bitter. Frankly speaking, if not because of this illustration, I will have used whole salted eggs instead of egg yolks alone. Then, the picture will be less appealing and texture will be less creamy. But that is acceptable for a house setting.

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