[badhairday]

I love it when my mom makes bitter melon with spare ribs! When she makes it, the bitter melon is bitter, but not overly obsessively bitter.

Recently, I've tried to stir fry them but the melons were too bitter for my liking.

My mom said that to make the melons less bitter, you're supposed to boil them in water just slighly before stir-frying them. I did that but it was still too bitter.
Anybody has any other tips?

[xiaochingu.]

my mom cooks it with sugar
and it tastes great!

[Inari]

After you cut the melon into pieces, do a salt rub. Just a moderate amount is enough, then let it sit for 15 or so minutes. Then boil them in water and as the above post suggested, add a bit of sugar when you cook them. Also when you cook it with meat, it'll be less bitter because of the sweetness of the meat. Hope that helps =]

[roguechinadoll]

um....cut it into smaller pieces? O.o

[badhairday]

Thanks guys for the great tip. I'll give that a try tonight. LOL, I should have mentioned that I do cut them into diagonal small slices, otherwise it'll be hard to stir-fry them whole. I don't know if that helped because my bitter melon were still bitter when I cooked them the other day.

[sarah_luisa]

wash in cold water and salt

[polaress]

i actually like it when they're bitter.

[jojoboy4]

Not really a tip in cooking them, but from all the years of eating bitter mellon, I've noticed that the younger ones are less bitter. So I guess when you're buying them at the market, you can select the younger looking ones..