BITTERGOURD STIR-FRY

01.07.2020: I have begun eating a lot of vegetables that I wouldn’t earlier eat. I do not enjoy eating them, yet I buy these vegetables and eat them to set a good example for Skip. I do not like vegetables that turn soft and squishy upon being cooked, which include most gourds. The Bittergourd, good ol’ Karela, doesn’t turn squishy but its bitter taste does it no favours. Growing up, Mamma would often cook it as it is one of Papa’s favourite vegetables. Needless to say, I wouldn’t eat it back then.

Now, we chop it into tiny bits and cook it with a whole lot of jaggery, some days even to my palate it feels excruciatingly sweet. Radha, who helps me around the house and with cooking, always lets out an exasperated sigh when she sees I’ve bought Bittergourd. “Akka, no one eats this, why do you buy it!”

I recently came across a recipe for Bittergourd stir-fry on a Facebook group that shares pictures of home cooked food and recipes. Not only was the image of the Bittergourd tantalising, the recipe was so simple. Since I had Bittergourd lying about, ignored and shunned to a corner in our fridge, I decided to try it out.

I offered the first slice to Radha who tasted it and beamed and gave me a nod of approval “it doesn’t taste bitter at all”, she said. Skip has now declared Bittergourd to be his favourite vegetable!

Don’t they look pretty? The salt and the tamarind paste offset the bitterness of the Gourd. The taste is a perfect combination of bitter, sweet and tangy. The recipe is simple and takes less than 15 minutes to cook. Though the recipe calls for marinating the slices overnight, you may do so for 6-8 hours too. 

Thank you Anju Ganapathy Aunty for this recipe! 

I would love for you to follow me on Facebook and Instagram @lucidlucent. 

BITTERGOURD STIR-FRY

Ingredients:

Bittergourd – 2

Tamarind paste – 1 ½ tbsps

Jaggery powder – 3 tbsps

Chilli powder – ¾ tsp

Turmeric powder- ¼ tsp

Salt – ½ tsp

Method:

1.     Chop the Bittergourd into round slices. Remove the seeds.

2.     Marinate it overnight in tamarind paste, jaggery, salt, turmeric and chilli powder.

3.      The next morning, you’ll find the bittergrourd would have left water. Drain the water and set the slice aside.

4.     Heat oil in a pan, add the slices to it and fry them covered for about 10 minutes until they brown and soften. Do not pile the slices over each other.

5.     Done.

Recipe notes:

•     You may adjust the amount of jaggery to suit your taste. I like Bittergourd to be slightly on the sweeter side.
•       Keep an eye on the gourds while frying them else they’ll get burnt.
•      I do not have tamarind paste. I soak tamarind pulp in hot water and add jaggery to the same liquid. After half an hour, I separate the flesh from the seeds. Once the jaggery has dissolved, I pour the entire contents (including