Bitter gourd is rich in nutrition. Has the effects of relieving summer-heat, clearing away heat, promoting diuresis, stimulating appetite, and promoting digestion. Protein in bitter gourd can improve people's immune function. There are many ways to cook with it, such as frying bitter gourd with lean meat and cooking soup. If pork, fish and shrimp are chopped and steamed in bitter gourd, it will have a unique flavor. In hot summer, cutting bitter gourd into pieces and wiping prickly heat on children can make children recover as soon as possible. Because some components in bitter gourd are insoluble in water but only soluble in ethanol, if it is soaked in bitter gourd wine, people can fully absorb its nutrition after drinking it. Especially for diabetics, eating bitter gourd has therapeutic effect on diseases.
It is more appropriate to use the word "bitter medicine" to explain the function of bitter gourd, because bitter gourd is both a vegetable and a good medicine.
Bitter gourd is a good dish. There are many cooking methods of bitter gourd. Generally, it is mainly fried. Wash fresh melons first, cut the pulp and seeds longitudinally, and then cut them into thin slices or filaments. Then fry in the oil pan, and add appropriate sliced meat, shredded pork and mushrooms as side dishes. According to different taste requirements, soy sauce, salt, wine, vinegar, sugar, monosodium glutamate, pepper and other seasonings are selected. For the first time, most people don't like bitterness. First, put the sliced melon or shredded melon into a boiling water pot, or put it into an oil-free hot pot for a while, or add salt for curing to reduce bitterness and retain flavor. Bitter gourd can be boiled, stewed and cooled, or processed into pickles and pickles, dehydrated and processed into dried melons, stored for a long time, and supplied in the off-season in winter and spring.
Bitter gourd is a delicious food. Cooking bitter melon porridge with glutinous rice and sugar has the detoxification effects of clearing away heat and relieving summer heat, clearing heart fire and improving eyesight, and can treat heat pain, polydipsia, heatstroke and fever, epidemic dysentery, red eyes and pain, etc. Cooking bitter gourd soup with bitter gourd and lean meat has the functions of clearing away heat, relieving summer heat, improving eyesight and detoxifying, and is suitable for symptoms such as summer heat, polydipsia, excessive miliaria and conjunctivitis. Braised chicken wings with bitter gourd, seasoned with yellow wine, ginger juice, soy sauce, sugar and salt, has the effects of clearing liver, improving eyesight, invigorating kidney and spleen, and relieving fever and vexation. Bitter gourd can also be made into health drinks. Soaking or decocting green bitter gourd into herbal tea can clear away heat, relieve summer heat, soothe the nerves and quench thirst; The sugar juice made of green bitter gourd can clear away heat and toxic materials, tonify kidney and strengthen spleen after drinking.
Bitter gourd is a good medicine. Bitter gourd has roots, stems, leaves, flowers, fruits and seeds used as medicine. It is cold in nature and bitter in taste. Entering the spleen and stomach meridian, clearing away heat and relieving summer heat, improving eyesight and detoxifying. According to the "Resting Diet Spectrum", bitter gourd "has bitter taste, cold and heat, clear eyes and clear heart, nourish blood and soften liver when ripe, strengthen spleen and tonify kidney". "Life" records that bitter gourd can "clear away heat and relieve summer heat, eliminate fatigue, clear heart and improve eyesight, and invigorate qi and strengthen yang". "Compendium of Materia Medica" records bitter gourd's "clearing heart and improving eyesight, benefiting qi and reducing fever".
Bitter gourd has the functions of lowering blood sugar and preventing and treating cancer. Bitter gourd is a kind of bitter and cold product, which contains momordicoside, momordicoside and so on. According to modern pharmacological experiments, bitter gourd has the function of lowering blood sugar, which is thought to be because bitter gourd contains an insulin-like substance, which is stronger than the existing hypoglycemic drug "metsulfuron-methyl", so bitter gourd is an ideal health food for diabetic patients. Bitter gourd has broad prospects in the prevention and treatment of cancer. In foreign countries, scientists injected lipoproteins in bitter gourd into mice with lymphoma, and the survival time of mice was prolonged, indicating that lipoproteins in bitter gourd can improve cellular immune function. Therefore, scientists predict that bitter gourd may become a new drug to treat cancer.
Bitter gourd is rich in nutrition, and the ascorbic acid content in melons is outstanding, which is 14 times that of cucumber, 5 times that of wax gourd and 7 times that of tomato. According to the data of nutritional analysis, every100g of the edible part of bitter gourd contains 84g of water, 0.9g of protein, 0.2g of fat, 3.2g of carbohydrate, 0.6g of inorganic salt, 1. 1 g of crude fiber, 75.3kJ calorie and 0.08mg of vitamins A and B/kloc-. Momordica charantia fruit contains momordicoside, as well as glutamic acid, alanine, phenylalanine, proline and citrulline. The seeds and leaves of Momordica charantia contain a lot of momordicoside.
Bitter gourd is named because of its special bitter taste. There are many different names in different places, such as melon, golden litchi, grape, frog, red girl, cold melon, gentleman's dish and so on. The "gall" in these names means that there are many irregular tumor-like protrusions on the surface of bitter gourd, and the fruit shape is mostly rotary fruit and oblong cone or short cone. The tender fruit is dark green or light green. Calling bitter gourd a "red girl" may mean that with the increase of physiological maturity, the epidermis turns from green to white and gradually turns yellow to red. When the fruit is ripe and red, the top is easy to crack, revealing blood-red pulp, which is wrapped with seeds, generally 20-50 per melon. Judging from the main function of bitter gourd is to clear away heat and detoxify, it seems more appropriate to call it "cold melon".
Bitter gourd originated in eastern India and was introduced to southern China in Ming Dynasty. Bitter gourd belongs to the genus Momordica in Cucurbitaceae. Its stems, leaves, flowers and fruits are all very strange and can be cultivated as ornamental plants. In recent years, bitter gourd has become a three-dimensional cultivated variety to beautify the courtyard, which embodies the value of combining ornamental and edible.
The types of bitter gourd are divided according to the color of melon skin, including green bitter gourd and white bitter gourd; According to the shape of the fruit, there are short cones, long cones and long cylinders; According to the size of the fruit, there are big bitter gourd and small bitter gourd. At present, most of the bitter gourd cultivated in various parts of China belong to the big bitter gourd, which is cylindrical and slightly pointed at both ends, with a length of 16-49 cm and a transverse diameter of 5-7 cm. The seeds are in the lower part of the fruit, and the seeds are easy to crack after the fruit matures. The nodules on the surface of the fruit are delicate and beautiful, the color of the peel changes with the development degree, and the young fruit is dark green. Commodities turn green, greenish white or white when they are ripe, and all are red and yellow when they are ripe.
Bitter gourd is widely cultivated in China, and it has been cultivated in all provinces and cities south of the Yangtze River and suburbs of big cities in the north, and has formed its own local varieties. Such as Guangdong's Slippery Bitter Melon, Long Bitter Melon, Big Top Bitter Melon, Xia Feng Bitter Melon, Xia Lei Bitter Melon and Suixin No.1, Hunan's Dabai Bitter Melon and Lanshan Dabai Bitter Melon, Sichuan's Ya 'an Dabai Bitter Melon, Beijing White Bitter Melon, Guizhou's Dushan White Bitter Melon, Shaanxi's Hanzhong White Bitter Melon and Shaanxi's Little Bitter Melon.
Bitter gourd has wide adaptability, and likes temperature, heat, humidity, rain, waterlogging, fat and barren. When these conditions are right, it can blossom and bear fruit continuously and harvest one after another. The harvesting period is 12- 15 days after flowering, which is a suitable harvesting period and should be harvested in time.
The practice of two home-made bitter gourd dishes;
First, salted egg bitter gourd
2 boiled salted eggs, bitter gourd 1 strip, onion 1 strip, 2 tablespoons oil.
condiment
Salt 1 teaspoon
The way of doing things
1. Wash bitter gourd, cut it open, dig out the pulp, and slice it with a horizontal knife; Shelling salted eggs, taking only the yolk, and breaking the yolk with a fork; Wash and dice onions.
2. Stir-fry bitter gourd with 2 tablespoons oil, pour in a little water and stir-fry bitter gourd until cooked, then add salted egg yolk and stir-fry, and season with salt.
3. Sprinkle with chopped green onion and serve.
Bitter gourd will not be too bitter if the skin particles are thicker.
Slice the peeled protein so that it won't be wasted when frying in other dishes, such as fried with lobster sauce, pepper and minced meat.
Second, bitter gourd fried pork liver (eyesight beauty)
Raw materials:
Bitter gourd 125g, pork liver 250g, garlic 1 head, cooking wine 10g, soy sauce 10g, sesame oil 15g, salt and monosodium glutamate.
Exercise:
(1) Wash bitter gourd, remove seeds, marinate with salt for 5 minutes to remove bitterness, then cut into pieces and slice garlic.
(2) Wash the pig liver, cut it into thin slices, add tartaric acid and salt for pickling, blanch it with boiling water 10 minute, and drain it.
(3) Put the wok on the fire, add sesame oil, bitter gourd, stir-fry a few times, add soy sauce, cook the cooking wine slightly, add pork liver, stir-fry and add monosodium glutamate and garlic slices to taste.
Flavor characteristics:
The dishes are exquisite, the liver is fragrant and tender, and the melon is fresh.
Nutrition reference:
This dish is cooked with pork liver and bitter gourd, which is complementary in nutrition and more comprehensive. It has the functions of anti-anemia, anti-radiation and vision protection, and is especially suitable for people who work in front of the fluorescent screen for a long time.