A New Vegetable

We tried another one of Charmila's recipes the other night - her Karavila Sambola. It is made with bitter gourd, the weird, ugly vegetable you see on the picture.
It is called bitter for a reason! I think the gourd itself is an acquired taste...
The recipe, however, was really good. The bitterness of the gourd is offset by tasty raw tomatoes and onions in lime juice. The recipe is an interesting mix of textures and some of the ingredients are hot while others are uncooked.
It is so much fun to try a new cuisine with ingredients we've never even seen before! I guess we'll be ready for Sri Lankan restaurant food when we're over there :-)