Goya Champuru (Bitter Melon Stir-Fry with Tofu and Egg)

Variations

• With luncheon meat: cubed luncheon meat instead of pork belly, as in the photograph, and common in Okinawa. It is saltier, so cut the soy sauce.
• Tofu champuru: no goya, just tofu, vegetables and meat. With the tofu as the main thing, brown it longer and darker.
• Somen champuru: boiled somen tossed briefly in oil with spring onion and meat. Rinse and drain the noodles hard or they clump in the pan.
• Mamina champuru: bean sprouts in place of the goya. No bitterness, so the same name covers a quite different taste.
• The name: according to ko.wikipedia it means something mixed, from the Malay and Indonesian campur, "to mix".

Tips

• The bitterness is not taken out. Dishes built on a bitter vegetable usually take some of it away with water. Ndole wrings its leaves through changes of water and says "Washing the leaves is the dish." Horta boils its greens for fifteen to twenty minutes and keeps what is left, because the aim is not a bright colour but a bitterness that has been talked down. The goya in this dish never meets water. In two minutes in the pan nearly all of its bitterness stays.
• The bitterness that stays is used as contrast. Balancing flavour gives bitterness this job: "provide contrast and break up monotony." The same guide says of horta that bitterness "here it is the dish." In champuru it is the contrast rather than the whole dish: bitter pieces set among bland tofu, soft egg and fatty pork, so the taste changes from one mouthful to the next. If a goya is too bitter for you, slice it thinner and salt it longer. Nothing else needs to change.
• The salting is there to draw water. It is the first line of salt and seasoning: "Raise the salt concentration at the surface of an ingredient and water flows out of its cells". Skip it and the goya gives that water up in the hot pan, and the seared tofu and the egg steam instead of frying. A little bitterness goes with the water; how much is set by how long you salt.
• The tofu sits at the firm end. Sundubu-jjigae lays tofu out as one material with two ends: "Mapo nudges the pan rather than stirring because its tofu is a block with the water pressed out; dubu-jorim presses harder still and browns a face onto it." Champuru goes further than both. ko.wikipedia notes that Okinawan tofu is firm enough not to break when stir-fried, and this dish needs tofu that holds when it is turned over high heat. Ordinary tofu, pressed, comes close.
• Tear it; do not cut it. The same article says it is considered best to break the tofu by hand into the pan rather than cut it into even cubes. A torn face is rough, so more of it touches the oil than a smooth cut face does, and it browns more and holds the seasoning better.
• Why the tofu is browned first and lifted out: left in the pan while the pork and goya cook, it gets turned over and over and breaks. Set on the outside first, it keeps its shape when it goes back in at the end.