The Pantry / Bitter Gourd
Bitter Gourd
Momordica charantia · karela · bitter melon · khatem
Bitter on purpose, and better for it.
What it is
Bitter gourd is a warty, deeply ridged green gourd with a hollow seeded core. The bitterness is not a fault to be cooked out. It is the reason the vegetable is eaten, and the cuisines that use it build around it. Sliced thin and fried hard it crisps into something closer to a crisp than a vegetable, and the bitterness turns from blunt to interesting.
Where it comes from
African in origin, long established across South and Southeast Asia and southern China. In Bhutan it is sliced into rounds and deep-fried as khatem, eaten with tea or alongside rice.
What it's called
Karela (Hindi and Urdu) · bitter gourd · bitter melon · khatem (Dzongkha, for the fried version). Botanically Momordica charantia.
In the kitchen
Top and tail it and slice into rounds as thin as you can manage, no more than two millimetres; anything thicker goes leathery in the middle no matter how long you fry it. Leave the seeds in if they are pale and soft, scrape them out if they have gone red and hard. Salt the slices, leave them twenty minutes, then squeeze out the water and pat them dry, or wet gourd steams in the oil and comes out limp. Fry at 170C for three to four minutes and dust with chilli powder while hot.
What we know about the claims
Bitter gourd carries a long and unusually persistent reputation for lowering blood sugar, and unlike most folk claims this one has real clinical study behind it, though the results are mixed and the effect modest. Treat it as a good vegetable rather than a treatment, and note that it can interact with diabetes medication.
Choosing and buying
Stocked by every South Asian and Chinese grocer in the UK and increasingly by large supermarkets; in the US, any Asian or Indian grocery. Choose firm ones with tight ridges. A mandoline helps with the slicing. Do not try to remove the bitterness entirely: salting takes the edge off and that is all it is meant to do.