Ampalaya Curry

[Frank Woolf]

A traditional way to cook bitter melon curry is to peel off the skin and cut into thin slices. It is salted and exposed to direct sunlight for few hours to reduce its bitterness. After a few hours, its salty, bitter water is reduced by squeezing out the excess by hand. Then it's rinsed with water a few times. Then fried in cooking oil, with onions also fried in another pan. When the onions have turned a little pink in color, the fried bitter melon is added to them. After some further frying of both the onions and bitter melon, red chili powder, turmeric powder, salt, coriander powder, and a pinch of cumin seeds are also added. A little water can be sprinkled while frying the spices to prevent burning. Then a good amount of tomato is added to the curry, with green chillies, according to taste. Now the pan is covered with a lid, heat reduced to minimum, the tomatoes reduce, and all the spices work their magic. The curry is stirred a few times (at intervals) during this covering period. After half an hour or so, the curry is ready to serve

[jcjimc]

When I lived many years ago in Nigeria I learned of a substitue for turnip.
You take an unripe Papaya (green) and peel it and cut it into large pieces and boil it in salted water until able to pierce it with a fork.You can either serve it from the pot or mash it with a little butter and black pepper

[Frank Woolf]

I have often had green papaya with malungay in tinolo, the local chicken stew, and don't like ripe papaya. I have a lot of Papaya growing so I will be trying your recipe as soon as there are some fruit.