Today I am sharing yet another recipe from my never-ending drafts. I clicked this Pavakkai Kichadi for Onam, a few years back but somehow it didn't make it to the blog. This recipe calls for deep frying the bitter gourd pieces, but you can shallow fry it with a little oil or air fry/oven bake without any oil. This is one of the easiest ways to eat bitter gourd if you are not a lover of it. On busy days, I just air fry the bitter gourd pieces and mix it with the whisked curd. Then give a very basic tempering and it still tastes amazing. I have already shared a bitter gourd fry recipe and lots of Onam Sadya recipes, do check it out. Also, some of my favourite pachadi's are:
Ingredients:
Whisked Curd - 1/2 Cup
Mustard Seeds - 1/2 tsp
Salt - as required
To Deep Fry:
Bittergourd - 1
Green Chilli - 1
Curry leaves - few
To Grind:
Coconut - 1/4 Cup
Green Chilli - 1
Cumin Seeds - 1/4 tsp
Curd - 1 tblsp
To Temper:
Coconut Oil - 1 tsp
Mustard Seeds - 1/4 tsp
Shallots - 2
Dry red chilli - 1
Curry leaves - few
Method:
1. Wash the bitter gourd and slice it vertically. Then discard the pith and seeds. Chop it into small pieces. Heat oil in a Kadai and deep fry the bitter gourd pieces.
2. When it turns golden brown and crisp, drain it from the oil. In the same oil, dry a green chilli and some curry leaves, keep it aside. Now crush 1/2 tsp of mustard seeds in a mortar and pestle.
3. Grind the items under 'To Grind' to a smooth paste. Take a mixing bowl, add the ground coconut paste, crushed mustard seeds, fried green chilli, curry leaves and bitter gourd.
4. Along, with this add the whisked curd and required salt. Mix it all together. For the tempering, chop the shallots finely and roughly break the dry red chilli. In a tadka pan, heat the coconut oil and allow the mustard seeds to crackle. Then add the chopped shallots, broken dry red chilli and curry leaves. Once the shallots turn golden brown, switch off the flame and pour the tadka over the kichadi.
Serve the kichadi with rice and any curry of your choice. I served it with Parippu Curry, Cabbage Thoran and matta rice.
- Instead of deep-frying the bitter gourd, I air fry it at 200 degrees for 6 to 7 mins or bake it in the oven until crisp.
- If you don't prefer deep frying, you can very well shallow fry it with little coconut oil.
- Sometimes I skip the ground coconut paste and simply mix the fried bitter gourd pieces with curd and add the tempering.
- If you don't like adding the ground coconut paste to the kichadi without cooking, then you can saute it along with the other temping items. Then pour it over the curd and bitter gourd mixture.
- The crushed mustard gives a nice flavour to the kichadi, so don't skip it.
- Adjust the curd and green chilli as per your preference.
Happy's Cook - Divya
Yummy flavourful
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