I know many of you will cringe when you see bitter gourd (I can literally see my sister making the puking face already! Hohoho…). But, I also know many out there who love this unique melon despite it’s bitter taste.

I remember mum use to utter these Chinese saying, “If you can eat bitter food, you can withstand bitterness in life…” whenever she try to force us to eat bitter gourd when we were young. Interestingly, I grew up loving it. Thankfully, hubby likes bitter gourd too!!!

I love drinking Chinese soup – especially bitter gourd soup. Mum always make sure we have soup daily during our schooling days. How I miss those days. Unfortunately, it’s really tough to make Chinese soup sometimes because it usually means at least 5-6 hours of boiling and keeping a close eye on the pot (making sure the water don’t dry up or water splatter out from the pot). I’m lazy and working from morning to night means that it’s not easy to enjoy Chinese soup at home. When I get desperate, I’ll usually drop by one of those double boiling soup restaurants. But, nothing beats home cook Chinese soup.

Finally, after living on our own for almost 1 year, I decided to hunt for something which might do the job. I’m pretty sure there’s something out there. At first, it would seem that the only option available is slow cooker. Personally, I am not a fan of slow cooker. 1) it takes forever to cook 2) there’s limited pot size.

So when I found an electronic double boiler by Khind, I was so excited!!! It comes in 2 pot sizes (One big pot and 3 smaller pots).

Unfortunately, there was not much review on this product, leaving me no choice but to be a guinea pig myself. I manage to get one from a local electronic store for about RM189 (It was on promotion then. Yay! )    

For my first experiment, I made the bitter gourd soup.

First, I clean the chicken breast and pork bones and rinse it with some boiling water. After that, I carefully place the meat at the very bottom of the pot. I chopped one medium size bitter gourd and one carrot. Slot in 4-5 slices of ginger. Fill up the pot with boiling water (leaving a gap of 1 inch from the lid). Place the pot into the double boiler. Fill to the max line of the double boiler with normal water.

There’s a soup function for 2 hours. But, I decided to use the slow double boil for 2 and half hour. The result – BEAUTIFUL.

The soup was nice and clear. The bitter gourd is really soft but still in one piece. Sometimes, when you boil over the stove, the vegetable breaks into pieces.

I’ve also experimented with the smaller pots. This time, I did bird’s nest soup.

Again I use the slow function…

I love this double boiler. It’s really friendly to use and makes double boiling a breeze. The only drawback is that I can’t disassemble the body to wash. Washing the body is a little awkward as I tried not to get any water into the plug-in area. Another con which my mum don’t like is, it’s fully plastic… ;p