Last Sunday, over lunch, I was telling Goon about how I wanted to enter WTSIM no 5 (which Cooksister Jeanne is hosting) but was totally stuck on ideas. The theme this time was stuffed vegetables and fruits.  Goon had a suggestion.

GOON: I know what you can stuff. I’ve seen green wrinkly things. The label said you can stuff them.
ME: Any idea what they are?
GOON: Green wrinkly things.
ME: But what are they called?
GOON: I don’t know. But they’re green and wrinkly.

I was clearly going to get no more information about the mystery vegetable from him and I mentally dismissed the green wrinkly things as some figment of Goon’s imagination. But, that evening, six of them appeared in the kitchen.

I recognised them immediately, although I think I’d describe them as more knobbly than wrinkly. Goon had picked up kerala, which had appeared in my mother’s kitchen from time to time when I was little. It’s a vegetable which, like courgettes and sprouts, drives fear into the hearts of small children.

Here the vegetable is known as bitter gourd. It’s called that for a good reason. In order to remind myself what the kerala tasted like, I cut a tiny sliver from the middle of the largest one and tasted.

For a second I thought it wasn’t so bad but, literally a few seconds later, there seemed to be a small chemical war going on in my mouth.  My face contorted and I made a noise that was something like “GAAAAAAAH!” The next ten minutes were spent trying desperately to drown out the flavour with cherry brandy. It didn’t go easily. *

I was seriously dubious about trying anything with the green knobbly gourd but, since Goon had gone to all the effort of getting it, I thought I’d better make an attempt at cooking it. Some people actively like it, so there must be something I could do to de-bitter my kerala.

I called up my parents to see if they could help me make this strange vegetable edible. Apparently they’d only ever used them in salads and curries, which didn’t really help me with my plans for stuffing, but cooking with sugar and tamarind seemed to be a common theme. The internet also provided me with some help. The bitterness of the kerala could be reduced by scraping off some skin, deseeding it, rubbing it with salt and soaking in cold water. I decided to try and balance the bitter flavour with a very strong sweet and sour stuffing made from tomato, onion,  and lots of sugar and tamarind. After all, it works for chicory. The dish would be an accompaniment to  a Sri-Lankan style goat curry.

I didn’t really know what to expect from my kerala as I began to prepare them, but scraping off the skin was easy enough. It did however leave a big green mess in the kitchen.

Once the skin was off, I cut the kerala in half and looked inside. Like many gourds, it had  a clear divide between the flesh and seed area.

A small knife was ideal to scrape out the seeds. Now there was a cylindrical hole in the gourd which was a perfect shape and size for stuffing. 

So the gourds were salted and soaked for an hour whilst I finished preparing the rest of our dinner: the slow cooked goat curry and spiced rice. I also made a lot of dahl, just in case the gourd was inedible.

The tomato chutney stuffing for the gourd was simple to make. I sweated some onion, added a couple of fresh chopped tomatoes, tomato puree and coriander, then added lots of sugar, tamarind and just a drop or two of vinegar to make it really sweet and tangy. Once the gourds were stuffed I cooked them in the excess tomato concoction.

Now, maybe Goon accidentally found the bitterest bitter gourds in the shop, but even after lots of soaking, these things were still not very nice. Goon ate one piece and said “Why the heck would anyone voluntarily eat these things?” I have to admit, I was thinking the same thing. The sweet and sour flavour certainly helped but, after a few bites, the bitterness was overwhelming. I can’t believe that some people actually eat it without salting it first!

So, if you happen to be a bitter gourd fan, good for you. I don’t get it but I think the sweet-sour thing turned it from totally inedible to the point where I could manage a piece or two. Fortunately there was plenty of curry so we didn’t go hungry.

This is my entry to this month’s Waiter, Waiter event. The roundup will be on Jeanne’s blog very soon, so go and check out the other entries. I’m sure that, unlike me, most people even made something they could eat!

* Which meant I had to drink a lot of cherry brandy. Shame.

However inclusive you try to make a blogging event, there’s always one moron that’s going to be totally confused by it. In the case of this month’s  ‘Waiter, Waiter’ event, that was me.

The theme for this round of the event is ‘’Waiter, Waiter, there’s Something in My Easter Basket.” I am good at ignoring public holidays. I managed an excellent job with Christmas this year and my efforts were only thwarted by my parents who found it totally unacceptable that I would be spending the with only the internet for company. I find Easter much easier to ignore. Apart from the shutting of shops (and College) on Easter Sunday, I go about my life as usual. I’m even tutoring on Easter Monday. Unfortunately, that meant that when Johanna, the Passionate Cook, announced the theme for the March edition of ‘Waiter, Waiter’ I was totally stuck.

For a moment I thought I could do something on Sri Lankan New Year, which often happens a week after Easter, but this year due to the quirks of the lunar calendar, it isn’t happening until early May. Bah! That was no help.

It wasn’t until Johanna came by my site and commented on my rosey lamb dish that I had any source of inspiration. So, you earthlings eat new season lamb at Easter, do you? Fair enough. I eat lamb whenever Goon decides he wants it. But this was as good a time as any to do some herb and spice crusting.

Just a couple of days later, Goon decided he had a craving for lamb. I had a lavender and herb crusted canon type thing in mind for the event, so I sent Goon out to find a butcher with some good quality lamb in stock.

When Goon arrived home he was not carrying a boned loin of lamb as I’d expected, but two whole rib racks. I’d never cooked these before but I knew Goon had a thing about them. He’d seen them in the shops and thought they looked cool.There had been many shopping trips where I had to stop him picking them up ad hiding them amongst the other items in our trolley. Of course, the moment he started craving lamb and went shopping unsupervised, they were the first things he thought to pick up.

The only thing that bothered me about these was the price tag on them. £7 per rack. Well… at least it looked like a lot of meat. I was anticipating a fair bit would be left for lunch tomorrow.

Typically, after spending all that time feeling smug and thinking that I was being clever making my roast lavender lamb, it turns out that the French have been doing it for years, particularly around Provence. The recipe I used was fairly similar to the traditional one. I’m sure this will work with any roasting joint of lamb so long as the roasting times have been altered accordingly.

First of all, coat your lamb joints in a bit of dijon mustard.

Then take abouit two tablespoons of fresh thyme leaves and about 15 rosemary leaves and chop them finely. Then get a level tablespoon each of coriander seed  and dried lavender and grind these. Mix the herbs and spices and pat the mixture all over the meat.

Oh, and if you’re going to take a photo, it’s best to do it BEFORE the meat goes in the oven. Otherwise it looks a bit strange like this

Completely ignoring the rubbish Tesco cooking instructions, I cooked my lamb for 25 minutes at 200C and then rested it for 15. It turned out quite a nice medium rare. Goon’s was properly rare. I tried to convince him to swap but he growled at me and kept a tight grip on his plate.

We had our lamb racks with a side of butterbeans crushed with garlic, cream and thyme and steamed purple sprouting broccoli. I didn’t think this dish needed a sauce but I suppose that if I was going to make anything, it would have been a light red wine reduction. I was impressed by the flavour of the herb crust. The lavender was very prominent and was complemented nicely by the herbs.

I couldn’t believe how quick this was to make! The whole thing was done in 40 minutes and probably eaten in ten. Given the amount of meat we had, there was suprisingly little leftovers. It seems that when Goon said he was craving meat he REALLY meant it.

So there is my fairly late entry to this month’s ‘Waiter, Waiter,’ hosted  by Johanna. Thank goodness she came by the site or I’d never have thought of anything to enter!