Paavaikai Pitlai

Bitter gourd is called Paavaikai in tamil and paavaikai pitlai is a traditional curry that is usually coupled with rice but it can be had with rotis. This curry is my predilection when it comes to bitter gourd because I do not know any other recipe that uses less oil or no jaggery/ sugar to make a bitter-less bitter gourd dish. I tried this first long back and I can say this is almost the only dish I prepare with karela/ bitter gourd these days. Bitter gourd is highly beneficial in insulin resistance conditions and hence is advised for diabetics. I will strongly recommend this for bitter gourd haters because Kundan was one earlier to eating this.

Serves: 2

Preparation Time: 10 minutes

Cooking Time: 15 minutes

Ingredients:

1.      Bitter gourd – 2

2.    Tomato – 1

3.    Onion – 1

4.    Oil – ½ tbsp

5.     Dry chilis – 1

6.    Bengarl gram – ½ cup

7.     Mustard seeds – ¼ tsp

8.    Cumin seeds – ¼ tsp

9.    Asafoetida – 1 pinch

10.  Curry leaves – 1 sprig

11.   Curry/Sambar powder – 1 tsp

12. Coriander powder – 1 tsp

13. Turmeric powder – ½ tsp

14.Tamarind pulp or juice as required

15. Salt to taste

16. Jaggery or sugar – 2 pinches (optional)

17.  Ground coconut – 1 tbsp (optional)

Method:

Step 1: Chop bitter gourd into semi circles, cut onion and tomato roughly.

Step 2: Blanch the bitter gourd in salted water and cook Bengal gram separately until soft but not mushy. Keep these aside.

Step 3: Heat oil in a kadai, splutter mustard seeds, cumin seeds, sprinkle asafoetida, put in the curry leaves & broken dry chili and sauté onion in it until translucent. Then sauté tomato in it and add turmeric powder to it.

Step 4: Pour a cup of water and tamarind pulp, add curry powder & coriander powder, add salt as per taste and let it boil for few minutes until raw smell goes off.

Step 5: Add the cooked channa dal, bitter gourd and ground coconut and then mix well to boil for a couple of minutes more. Adjust spices and add jaggery or sugar at this stage if necessary.

Step 6: Serve hot with rice.

TIPS:

*You can  roast coconut, red chilies, coriander seeds and a spoon of tur dal separately in a drop of oil and grind it into coarse powder; add this instead of curry powder. This is the traditional procedure but I do it little simple.