Vive La Vida--Tuvalu Happy Kitchen: 8th fia fia cooking--the Bottle Gourd Pancake (2012/03/23)

8th Fia Fia Cooking in Vaiaku Maneapa

<To Eat is To Be Healthy>

Ingredient	Condiment
500g Bottle gourd	Salt
200g carrot	Black pepper
Spring onion	Soy sauce
2 bowls of flour	Oyster oil
2 cloves of garlic	Tomato sauce
2 bowls of water	Vinegar
½ bowl of corn flour or cassava powder	Sugar
1 egg
Chili

1. Peel and grate the bottle gourd and the carrot.

2. Wash some spring onions, and shred them.

3. Add some salt into the shredded bottle gourd and carrot to marinate for 10 minutes.

4. Squeeze the shredded bottle gourd and carrot.

5. Sift the plain flour.

6. Mix 2 bowls of flour, ½ bowl of cassava powder, 1 egg, and 2 bowls of cool water, blend all the ingredients until becoming to the paste.

7. Peel the garlic and chop them finely.

8. Quickly stir-fry the garlic and the shredded bottle gourd and carrot, and put some salt, oyster oil, soy sauce, and black pepper to taste.

9. Put all the ingredients into the paste and mix them well.

10. Pour the paste in the pan, fry it over low heat until the both sides become golden brown.

11. Make the dip:

a. Mix some ground garlic, soy sauce, chili, few drops of sesame oil.

b. Tomato sauce. （You can also add some chili, sugar, vinegar, and put some dissolved corn flour to boil to make it sticky.）

Bottle gourd is an excellent vegetable for hypertension patients.
It is a suitable vegetable for light, low-cal diets as well as for children, people with digestive problems, diabetics and convalescents.
High in water content, calabash gourd is cooling, calming, diuretic and easy to digest.
The vegetable is very effective in treating constipation and other digestive disorders.
It helps in treating urinary disorders.
Drinking a glass of bottle gourd juice once in the early morning helps in treating grey hair.
Mixing the juice with sesame oil provides an effective medicine for insomnia. Massage the scalp with this preparation every night.
Bottle gourd juice is very helpful in treating epilepsy, stomach acidity, indigestion, ulcers and other nervous diseases.
A glass of bottle gourd juice, mixed with a little salt, helps in preventing excessive loss of sodium from the body. It quenches thirst, prevents fatigue and keeps one refreshed during summers.
Bottle gourd juice is also very useful for shedding extra calories and maintaining optimum health.