Ampalaya / Bitter Gourd / Bitter Melon
Below 30 years of age, I would have gone hungry or at least skipped a 
meal rather than eat ampalaya voluntarily. I have traumatic memories of staring at a dish of thinly sliced (like that would make the stuff less bitter!) half circles of ampalaya sauteed with ground meat and lots of eggs at the center of our lunch table and thinking… WHERE IS THE BLOODY KETCHUP??? Sorry, but this was torture on a platter. Bring on the whips, thank you. Blindfold me and place a large ampalaya in my hands and witness near instantaneous apoplectic seizures! Above 30, my reactions have changed little, though I now eat ampalaya as part of a good pinakbet - so this post is a stretch for Marketman, a true labor of love for readers who are not allergic to the knobbly, bitter and wicked ampalaya…
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another book meme. Since I have hit middle age and only read cookbooks and food magazines these days (confident that my I.Q has peaked and is slipping downhill from now on), I have asked my wife to fill in this meme as she is by far more erudite and her stack of bedside books is far more interesting than mine. She puts post it notes on books, chapters, articles and pages that I should read so I don’t have to wade through the crap… Here is her response… (and this is the last chain meme we are doing for a long while…)
It is absolutely delicious, economical and takes less than 15 minutes to make. With a bowl of steamed rice it is a satisfying meal. I have always ordered “Szechuan style” or “spicy” eggplant dishes in Chinese restaurants (particularly in the West) but I have NEVER tried to cook it at home. The other day I purchased all that incredible eggplant and just had to do it justice… so I scoured my Asian cookbooks and even the internet but I didn’t find a recipe that I completely liked. So I took the basic ideas from the recipes and improvised a little. A Chinese cook would probably cringe at my version, but I liked it, so there. I do not call it anything Szechuan or Chinese like… this is simply Spicy Eggplant a la Marketman.
freshly picked eggplants I have ever seen in Manila. They had two varieties in boxes on the ground… the longer Chinese or Japanese variety that had this spectacularly even light “aubergine” color and these cool fat round eggplants that are closer to the European varieties. What was really impressive about the Asian eggplants was their heft, freshness, consistency of color and their totally unblemished skins (which I hope means they were raised under netting rather than seriously pumped with insecticides!) If you put these against any other eggplant in the market that day you would see a serious difference in quality. My novice guess is that they came from original seeds as well as opposed to seeds from previous plants which tend to mutate and colors to vary over time. I had a post on 
Today I spied a really nice mix of edible flowers that would make a terrific garnish for a fancy dish or to color a boring green salad. Frankly, edible flowers are good for color but I have always found them a bit too “flowery” and “stameny” to eat in any large volume. This terrific looking mix is made up of hibiscus blooms, malva flowers, marigolds and malunngay flowers. It looks great, it didn’t cost too much, and it is 100% organic. My suki Gil Carandang at Salcedo had several containers of them this morning and I found some other goodies at his stall that I will feature in the next day or so.
Poking around the pantry for just the right tea to have with a dense slice of fruitcake, I pulled out a can of Mariage Freres Earl Grey Tea with Blue Flowers, twisted it open and stared aghast at the last remaining tablespoon of tea leaves! Yikes! And there are no trips to Paris planned in the next year or more! I drink tea. I do not, for some reason like coffee except in ice cream. And I like lots of different brands and flavors of tea though for special occasions or that once off need for something particularly refined, I like Mariage Freres. Perhaps it’s the nicest black packaging in the entire tea world, or the seriously light and delicate leaves that are packed inside, or the flavorings that are so unique and gentle…but it is very good tea indeed. The hue of the tea when infused in water is refined as well…it doesn’t turn a deep brown like mass-marketed crushed teas in tea bags…instead it is a rich light to medium caramel. The aroma is better than most of the other teas I have tried.
that is delicious and extremely easy to make. First slice the zucchini into longish strips about 2 inches long and about half an inch wide or thinner. Slice up some white onions. Put a pan on high heat and wait for it to get very hot. Add some vegetable oil then follow with the onions. There should be a nice hiss when the onions hit the fat. Shake the pan often to flip the onions around until they start to get a little cooked, say 1 minute or so. Add the zucchini and continue to shake the pan to prevent its contents from sticking to the bottom of the pan. Add lemon or calamansi juice, some Kikkoman or light soya sauce, cracked black pepper and as you are about to remove the pan from the flames, sprinkle some sesame seeds and a dash of sesame oil on the veggies.
possess a thin skin and a high water content. This would distinguish them from the “winter squashes” with thicker skins and denser meats. Often referred to as “courgettes” in Europe and other English influenced locales, the Italian term zucchini is derived from zucca or “gourd.” Zucchini is arguably the more correct term as it is generally agreed that the Italians were the first to actively raise and eat this vegetable. Courgette or small Courge or marrow seems to have gained use after the Italians started… Zucchini is the terminology used in the U.S. as it was introduced by Italian immigrants in the early 20th century. A mild, watery vegetable, the zucchini is extremely easy to grow and thrives in the Philippines. It is one of the first new “western” vegetables to be grown here in the early 1990’s (I am considering, tomatoes, potatoes, etc. to be relatively ancient…). I like zucchini because it is easy to cook, absorbs different flavors, it is relatively cheap and I guess, reasonably nutritious given the nice dark green skin. When fresh, the skin is a vibrant green, it is firm and weighty for its size.