A friend grew some bitter melons, too many to use by himself, and shared some of the harvest with us. With the word bitter in the name of the vegetable I was warry. That's when having a wife who can find anything, including good recipes, is priceless. She found this recipe making a stir fry with the bitter melon but more beef than bitter.Part of making it less bitter is removing the white inner pulp, the source of the bitter. I didn't want to remove it all though since that is also where a lot of the benefits of the bitter melon reside. It's bitter for a reason and a little bitter is a good thing. With the sauce you make for this dish it really compliments it.
We started by slicing the beef thinly for stir frying. This was boneless chuck roast. We marinated it for an hour in a mixture of corn starch, for thickening, baking soda, for tenderizing, oyster sauce, mirin, and dark soy sauce, for flavor, and a little extra water to keep it from burning to the bottom.
The bitter melon we sliced crossways to add surface area so the sauce could really coat it, it is pretty bitter if you don't offset it. We added garlic, some black beans for texture, more mirin, sugar, more soy, sesame oil and pepper. You know your taste better than anyone so play around with the quantities to see what suits you best. In the end there should be 1/2 to 3/4 cup of added stuff. Otherwise it can get saucy, unless you want more saucy. It's good over rice.
