A friend of mine gave me some bitter melon and long gourd. We call long gourd Upo in the Phiilippines. It's a great vegetable to cook with meat or fish soup. I wasn't able to plant one this year so I am glad that I was given one.
Since it was very long, I decided to freeze them so I can use it when I have the ingredients I need to cook it when I want to. I usually use this to cook sardines.
Here's how I freeze ithe long gourd.
- Peel the skin off using a vegetable peeler and slice it in half.
- Remove the stuff inside the gourd using a spoon.
- Then slice them according to desired size.
- Blanch it in a boiling water for 5 minutes.
- Drained the hot water and plunge the blanched gourd immediately in an ice water. Let it chill for 5 minutes before draining the water.
- Let it drain thouroughly. You can lay it on a kitchen towel or have it drained on a strainer.
- Put it in a ziploc and put it in the freezer. Make sure to put the date.
I love how blanching it maintain it's beautiful color and preserve the fresh taste.
3 delicious comments:
Wow, I haven ever seen anything quite that long, what fun. Wonder if they would grow here if I could find the seeds. Take care Diane
That is one long upo you have there, i wish to plant one this summer but since we don't have much sunlight, I will still risk and place them in a pot. Put them in front of the yard where most of the sunlight is.. we shall see if that works..and a great way to keep upo all year long..
It looks great! Definitely perfect for soups and stews. I'd love to try this out!
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