Stuffed Bitter Melon Soup

I've only recently posted about bitter melon but that recipe only got through half of it and at just over £6 for the vegetable I wasn't letting the other bit go to waste (even if the pointy end had gone a bit soft by the time I got around to it).

My first encounter with bitter melon was in stuffed form, the Chinese recipe where the gourd is sliced, the seeds are scraped out and the void is filled will minced pork and prawn before the meat and veg disks are cooked in black bean sauce.  It's a lovely dish but Lizzie over on Hollow Legs has already blogged that so I thought I'd do something different, which looking at Lizzie's stuffing ingredients isn't actually that different.  The starch thickened Chinese sauce is replaced with a punchy stock though which makes for a very moreish soup, the stock taking on flavours from both the vegetable and the stuffing, not to mention the big glug of fish sauce at the end. 

If you're looking for provenance then I have eaten this in the middle of Vietnam and something very similar is served in Thailand too.

Stuffed Bitter Melon Soup

Serves 3

350gr bitter melon (half a decent sized one)

250gr minced pork

1 ts oyster sauce

1/2 ts salt

1 clove garlic, finely chopped

1/2 ts sugar

1/4ts white pepper

3-4 dried wood ear mushrooms, soaked

1.25 litres chicken stock, weak as it will reduce

1 TB fish sauce

Greens from two spring onions

Method

Chop the bitter melon into three then scoop out the seeds, scraping the pith out with them.  Give them a good coating in salt (not in ingredient's list) and leave in a colander or sieve over the sink for 15 minutes.  This will help leech out some of the bitterness.  Wash well and dry off.

Shred the reconstituted wood ear mushrooms then mix into the pork along with the oyster sauce, garlic, salt, sugar and white pepper.  Stir well to combine, if you stir in one direction then the meat should come together and firm up.

Stuff each section of bitter melon with the pork and then place into the chicken stock, bring to the boil then simmering gently for 30-40 minutes till the bitter melon is tender and the pork cooked through.  Top up the stock if it looks like it is reducing too much.

Place the stuffed bitter melon in three bowls then add the fish sauce to the stock before topping up each bowl.  Before serving scatter the spring onion greens over the stuffed bitter melon soup.

Comments

[Lizzie]

Looks lovely. I wish they'd sell bitter melon in portioned chunks - cheaper, and I wouldn't have to be eating it for the rest of the week.

[sunflower]

Wow six quids for one oriental bitten melon, that is expensive. I hardly ever bought it while living here and I can only find it in London.

Your stuffed melon soup looks goods.

My favourite with bitten melon are

-Bitter melon chunks braised with pork ribs and black beans
- Soup with pork (like ribs) and dried oysters
- Beef and bitter melon stir fry

[Joshua Armstrong]

Lizzie - they are rather big aren't they, definitely have to commit to a week of them unless you're cooking for a few

Sunflower - yep, they were about £8 or £9 a kg on Gerrard St. Maybe out of season. My pork belly cook book has a recipe where it's braised with pork belly and one of those cans of dace in salted black beans, thought it sounded very interesting.

[sunflower]

Black beans fried dace + belly, I reckon will work quite well. The chewy fish and black beans are salty and quite flavourful.

Not had dace with black beans for years. Great with plain juk (rice soup). Used to be quite cheap, poor man food. I think it has gone up to £3+ for a can. Best brand is Pearl River (not sure they still make it), other brands just not the same. I heard some of the these canned fish from China are banned in many countries due to contaminated fish.

[Lan]

1. i love this soup. i didn't as a kid but now i do enjoy it immensely. i typically boil it first, once, to temper the bitterness a bit.

2. i don't know the currency over theres but that seems like ALOT for this veg.

[Joshua Armstrong]

Sunflower - I've never had that dace with black bean, although think I have a can in the back of the cupboard so may have to remedy that. I had heard of the contamination bit too. My can was bought in Tawau.

Lan - Assuming you're in the US then £6 is about $9-$10.

[sunflower]

You brought canned food from Tawau? Good on you! Do they make black bean dace in Malaysia? If you like prawn crackers, next time from Tawau you should bring back some dried (not fried yet) prawn crackers made with real prawns not the msg loaded white pasty ones all take-aways and restaurants used over here.

Interest read about black beans dace from this blogger. This is the brand I always had PRB (short for Pearl River Bridge) http://tastyislandhawaii.com/blog/2009/09/25/fried-dace-with-salted-black-beans/

[Khon Kaen]

Yep - bittermelon is great stuff and the Thai's really know how to cook it