Not only can papaya trees enjoy the fruit, but the type of male papaya flower which does not produce fruit but only flowers can also be processed into sweets or stir-fried vegetables and other types of vegetables. However, many people don't like papaya flowers because they taste bitter, even though if they are processed properly, papaya flowers or papaya leaves will not taste bitter
There are many ways to ensure that papaya flowers or papaya leaves don't taste bitter, but for now I will use my method so that my papaya flowers don't taste bitter and this time I will just stir-fry the papaya flowers simply to complement my side dishes at lunch. And for more details, let's see together how I process these papaya flowers.
Materials needed
1. 500 grams of papaya flowers
2. 1 Tomato
3. Chili (the chili that I use is red chili and red caplak chili, the amount is adjusted to your taste and level of spiciness tolerance)
4. 3- 5 cloves of red onion
5. 2 cloves of garlic
6. 1 stalk of lemongrassLemongrass
7. ½ tablespoon Salt.
The way to cook papaya flowers is:
1. Bring the water to a boil and the water must really boil, then after boiling, add the papaya flowers that have been picked and washed until clean, add just a little salt then cover the pan and cook for about 10 minutes then turn off the stove without opening the lid of the pan to allow the ripening process. Keep running and save more gas.
2. Peel the tomatoes, chilies, shallots and garlic, then wash them and put them in a blender
3. Crush the lemongrass
4. Heat cooking oil to sauté the ingredients that have been pureed until they are really fragrant and the remaining water from the blender has run out and don't forget to add the lemongrass that was crushed earlier, and stir until evenly mixed.
5. Then, after the spices are fragrant, add the salt and stir again and after the spices have dried out a bit, add the papaya flowers. You don't need to stir-fry too long because the papaya flowers are already cooked, so just mix them with the spices, stir-fry briefly for about 3 minutes and adjust the taste. whether the salt and other seasonings are suitable for your tongue or not.
6. After that, the papaya flowers can be served and enjoyed and it will be even tastier if served with hot rice.
Tips for ensuring that papaya flowers are not bitter when processed are that the papaya flowers must first be boiled in boiling water and really boil then the papaya flowers must be boiled thoroughly. If the papaya flowers are boiled half-cooked then the papaya flowers will still taste bitter. Good luck and greetings from me maytom, Indonesia