Stuffed Bitter Melon Soup (Tom Mara Yad Sai)

Happy New Year everybody! It has been a while since we last updated the blog. There were quite a number of big events in our lives that prevented us from having the time to add content to the website for the past year (life happens!) But now, we are back in full swing with tasty treats of great recipes and restaurant reviews.

For those of you who follow us on instagram @JennyAndGusFood, you would know that we haven't slowed down in cooking activities or sampling delicious food from our travels. Recapping last year, we took a new initiative to test our cooking skill through the Dinning Series project. We successfully hosted 6 Dinning Series where each instance we tested out recipes of different themes and served guests from 2-5 pax. Sort of like a pop-up restaurant but in our studio apartment. I will dedicate a future post to talk about our Dining Series as we continue this project throughout 2019.

Not only that but we traveled to San Francisco, Boston, Taiwan, and Thailand. Trying local food and enlightening our palate. We also discovered new Chicago restaurants that kept us satiated time and time again. What these staple restaurants or our go-to places are, we'll keep you posted in our later posts.

Without further a-do, I would like to share the recipe of one of my Thai comfort food, Stuffed Bitter Melon Soup (Tom Mara Yad Sai). I posted a picture of the soup the other day on FB and instagram, and was surprised to hear a resounding voice that many also enjoyed this dish. What's really interesting was that friends from other parts of Asia (China & Vietnam) also has a similar dish in their collection of cuisine. I wonder what makes people like bitter melon despite the strong bitter taste? At least for me, I love the contrast of the savory ground pork mixture against the bitterness of the bitter melon and the recipe here is one way to capture the essence of this intriguing vegetable.

Stuffed Bitter Melon Soup

Ingredients

Time: 1 hour
Course: Entree
Serving: 4

2 bitter melons (hollowed out and cut in chunks, about 3 in. long)
1/2 cup of pickled mustard green, salty kind (optional)
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Stuffing
1 cup of ground pork
1 cup of dried glass noodles (reconstituted and cut into shorter noodles)
1 green onion (finely chopped)
1/3 cup of cilantro (finely chopped)
1 clove of garlic (finely chopped)
1 tsp of oyster sauce
1 tsp of light soy sauce
1 tsp of fish sauce
1/2 tsp of sugar
1/2 tsp of salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 tbsp of potato starch

Broth
8 cups of water/chicken stock/pork stock (quantity may be as needed to ensure the stuffed melon is submerged)
1 tsp of black peppercorns
3 cilantro stems or cilantro roots
1 tsp of salt

How to make it?

1. Combine the stuffing ingredient. Mix well, preferably with your hand because the ingredient needs to be eventually distributed. The key is making sure the noodles and ground pork are evenly mix.

2. Take the hollowed out bitter melon chunk and stuff the ground pork mixture. Fill in the cavity and remove excess stuffing.

3. On medium-high temperature, heat a pot with the broth ingredients. 

4. Once the broth is boiling, add the stuffed bitter melon along with the optional pickled mustard green.

5. Simmer for about 30-45 minutes until bitter melon turns yellow green and is tender.

The taste of home~