yazi32
- Feb 7, 2015

Stuffed or chopped Crocodile!

Bitter Gourd Melon (Karela) or as I recall the name I gave it ‘Crocodile veg’.I spent my childhood listening to my parents lecturing me about the benefits of this ‘Crocdile’ lookalike vegetable. Today I definitely appreciate the knowledge my parents shared with me. .

You may wonder why and how did I get the crocodile from? It’s easy they're green, their uneven surface remind me of uneven crocodile and they are BITTER!

A friend recently asked me about Karela and what she could do with it. This took me back to days back in my mother's kitchen.

Like most people who may not know the benefits of this wonderful ‘Crocodile’ look alike vegetable I used to pull my nose and couldn’t understand why anyone in their right mind would eat such a bitter vegetable. I would think to myself why is my father punishing himself by boiling the whole bitter gourd melon in water, then chilling the water and enjoying the cool drink later? I would hear him say ‘it’s good for diabetes, a good medicine’. I can’t recall him having severe diabetes.

This wonderful vegetable soon wormed its way into my kitchen. My mother’s great skills of cooking it in so many different ways and reducing the bitterness worked wonders.

So this week when my friend wanted some advice I went to the local Asian supermarket and grabbed few karelas. I knew my kids wouldn’t touch them so I had to be very creative I bought some mince meat (keema) and I was ready to cook three curries in one go.

So this is what my plan was. I was going to make keema with potato for the kids but I was going to take some of the cooked keema (before I added potatoes) and I was going to add my chopped and fried karela in with the keema, creating a keema karela dish too. The creativity didn’t stop there I had made extra curry masala and used some of the masalas to stuff the karelas . So three different curries cooked in the same length of time, while I listened to my audible. That’s multi tasking!

Try adding the keema karela with some melted cheese in a wrap/chappatti. Love this.

Make a keema karela pasty.

How about a keema karela biryani.

Not only are the karela low in calories, only 17 per 100g it also has many health benefits. for eg.

Inhibiting pancreatic cancer.

Helpful in treating acne and many other skin conditions.

supporting losing and gaining healthy weight.

For a quick easy way to enjoy the Bitter melon juice with so many benefits. See link below.

http://www.buzzle.com/articles/how-to-make-bitter-melon-juice.html

Here are some sites you can visit to learn all about Bitter Gourd Melon.

http://www.nutrition-and-you.com/bitter-gourd.html

http://www.stylecraze.com/articles/amazing-benefits-of-bitter-melonbitter-gourd/