Brilio.net - Many parts of the papaya plant are edible, including papaya flowers. Papaya flowers are often used as a side dish for main dishes. When cooked, papaya flowers have a delicious taste. However, before consuming them, it is important to know how to remove the bitter taste. Like the leaves, papaya flowers contain the enzyme papain which causes the bitter taste.
To remove this bitter taste, some people usually boil papaya flowers with special ingredients such as salt and guava leaves, which are believed to neutralize the bitter taste. However, guava leaves may be difficult to find. As an alternative, the ingredients used by TikTok user @fajarlele can be tried. In one of her videos, she mentioned using only one simple ingredient when boiling papaya flowers.
As reported by BrilioFood on Thursday (7/11), the creator's counter uses baking soda. But before adding baking soda, prepare the water that will be used to boil the papaya flowers. Prepare water in a pan and heat until boiling.
photo: TikTok/@fajarlele
Once done, add the cleaned papaya flowers. In the video, he also boils them with papaya leaves. Then sprinkle 1/2 tsp of baking soda into the boiled water. Stir until evenly distributed and boil the papaya flowers.
"Baking soda can also maintain the color of boiled vegetables," said TikTok @fajarlele.
photo: TikTok/@fajarlele
In addition to removing the bitter taste and maintaining its color, the addition of baking soda can also speed up the boiling process. Therefore, just boil it for a few minutes so that the texture of the papaya flower is not too soft or the ingredients are destroyed. If so, immediately remove and drain.
photo: TikTok/@fajarlele
When the boiled papaya flower was tasted, Fajar admitted that the taste was no longer bitter. This proves that baking soda is really effective in removing the papain enzyme in papaya flowers. Now, the boiled papaya flowers are ready to be processed again with various spices and herbs.