Potatoes and Pointed Gourd
June 7, 2008
If I have to be completely Indian, then its just basically parwal ki bhaaji. If I have to be completely Bengali, then its potoler dalna.
This piece of vegetable is a versatile one. Seriously. Its not really tasteless, but takes the taste of whatever is cooked with it. The distinctness of it comes from its crunchy seeds, its pea-pod-shaped body and its crunchy skin. It also gets a little watery after cooked…but that can be avoided.
A pointed gourd/parwal in traditional Indian cuisine, is either fried with spices, or stuffed with fish/minced meat or mashed potatoes, or served as a curry. The stuffed version is ideally my favorite, but the recipe below is courtesy of Shreya’s Mum, who generously left us a huge sealed bowl of it.
What You Need:
- Pointed gourd (parwal/potol), about 500-750gms of it diced into cubes
- 3-4 medium sized potatoes, diced
- 3 medium sized tomatoes…chopped
- 3 medium sized red onions…chopped
- 3 tablespoons of vegetable oil
- 1 teaspoon of cumin seeds
- 1 tablespoon of garlic paste
- 1 teaspoon of ginger paste
- Half a teaspoon of dry red chili powder
- 1 teaspoon of chopped green chilies
- 1 teaspoon of turmeric powder
- Half a cup of chopped coriander/cilantro leaves
- Salt and Pepper to taste
How-To:
- Heat oil in a skillet.
- Add the cumin seeds and stir for a few seconds trill the smell hits your nose.
- Add the onions, garlic paste and ginger paste and cook till the onions turn brown at the corners.
- Add the red chili powder, turmeric powder and the tomatoes and cook for about 30 seconds.
- Add the potatoes and the pointed gourd. Coat them well in the masala mixture.
- Add water just enough to cook the potatoes. We used about 1 and a half cups of it.
- Cover and cook on low heat for fifteen minutes or till the potatoes are done.
- Add the chopped green chilies, the chopped coriander/cilantro leaves, salt and pepper to taste. Mix well.
- Cover and cook for another five minutes.
- Do a quick taste check and adjust the amount of salt and pepper.
- Cook uncovered on high heat till most of the water boils out.
- Serve with boiled rice or rotis.
Have fun!
June 4, 2009 at 2:50 pm
[...] still loved potatoes, and never got tired of trying something new with them, burnt pots and pans aside. My friends and I spent Holi every year roasting purple sweet potatoes [...]