Pyaaz vaale bharva karele, ek katori dahi aur garam – garam parathe bana kar koi khila de…bas, itni choti si ichha poori ho jaaye!!! (bitter gourd stuffed with onions, one bowl of curd along with hot parathe… that is all I ask!) I love pyaaz vaale bharva karele a lot. The only problem is that in Bangalore we don’t get those small sized bitter gourds so easily. This week when I was storing my vegetable deliveries in the fridge, I was pleasantly surprised to see that those small sized bitter gourds were delivered. Usually, once I finish my cooking for the day, I don’t go into the kitchen to cook anything else. But seeing those small sized karela I started chopping the onions. I wanted stuffed bitter gourd for lunch!!
Preparation is not a time consuming process if you are not peeling bitter gourd. Many people peel them and smear with salt and keep it like that for an hour or so and later wash it and continue with the rest of the process. This way a lot of the bitter taste gets washed away and probably those who don’t want to eat karela, might find it interesting to give this method a try.
But my mother never cooked karela by peeling them – so I am also used to cooking them this way. Moreover, as I don’t want all the nutrients to be washed away, I never peel them.
There is one more post in the blog on karela Karele ki Sabzi (bitter gourd)
Some more stuffed vegetables recipes :
Stuffed brinjal/eggplant/aubergines (Bharva baigan)
Stuffed Capsicum (bharva shimla mirch)
Stuffed Brinjals/Eggplant/Aubergines
Ingredients:
Small size bitter gourd 6
Medium sized onions 2Oil 4 tsp
Coriander powder 2 tbsp
Turmeric powder 1 tsp
Salt as per your taste
Coarsely grounded fennel seeds 1 tbsp
Red chilli powder 1 tsp
Dry mango powder 1+1/2 tsp
Oil 4 tbsp
Process:
Wash and cut bitter gourd vertically with a deep cut.
Chop onions fine.
Heat 2 tsp of oil in a pan and sauté chopped onions till they are transparent.
Add rest of the spices along with the remaining 2 tsp of oil.
Mix everything well and sauté this onion masala for 5 minutes on sim heat.
Switch off heat after five minutes and when masala cools down, fill it into all the bitter gourds.
Add remaining 4 tbsp oil in the pan along with karela. Cover the pan and let bitter gourd cook on sim heat till they become tender from all sides. In between, keep on turning them upside – down for even cooking.
Serve them with hot parathas, rotis or as a side dish for rice.
