Stir the feels

By: Zhiwei Li

My dish is stir fry bitter melon. The reason why I chose this dish is because when me and my mom first moved into the United States we lived with my grandpa. During that time my dad brought us over to the US and he didn’t have a job. So we lived with my grandpa. My grandpa gave us a roof on top of our head and in return we would do all the chores. When we were living with my grandpa during dinner my grandpa almost everyday he would stir fry bitter melon and always force me to eat them. He claims that it is good for me and I never believed him, but now after learning about the health benefits of bittermelon maybe I

should’ve believed him. I still don’t like bitter melon but now I would understand why they forced me to eat bitter melon all the time and it actually has health benefits for me. This connects back to the hypothesis because the hypothesis mentions mutual aid and I feel like during that time my grandpa helped us by providing us with a roof over our heads and we helped my grandpa by doing all the chores in the house. During our mini interview, my mom said “I am very thankful for your grandpa helping us during that time” and “if he wasn’t there when we first came we would probably be on the streets (jokingly)”.

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Stir Fried

Bittermelon

Ingredients:

Bittermelon
Douchi (fermented black soybean)(optional)
Garlic
Sugar
Soy sauce
Salt
Pepper

Directions:

Step 1: Remove the ends of the bitter melon, halve it, and scope out the seeds inside the bitter melon. Slice them into thin pieces.

Step 2: Bring a small pot of water to a boil. Boil it for 30 sec to 1 min. Drain the bitter melon and set it aside.

Step 3: Heat oil in a stir fry pan or wok, add the garlic and the fermented black soybean, then add the bitter melon in. stir fry till the bitter melon is tender. Add salt, pepper, soy sauce and sugar, season to your taste.