The pavakkai, bitter gourd, Momordica charantia–பாகற்காய்/pākaṟkāy in Tamil which becomes pavakkai in colloquial speak and kaakarakaya in Talugu–has never been an easy vegetable to like. The chief reason: bitterness. And yet its famed reputation as an anti-diabetic makes it food, preventive care, and therapy all at once. Net-net: bitter, but good for you, so eat it in whatever way you can.
That logic doesn’t always stand up to the bitter gourd’s intense bitterness though. Nor do insights such as these, fascinating though they are in pointing out that the bittergourd’s hypoglycaemic effects are actually several mechanisms acting in different bodily regions and pathways:
“M. charantia, its extracts and isolated components are believed to exert their hypoglycaemic effects via different physiological and biochemical processes. These include insulin secretagogue like effect, stimulation of skeletal muscle and peripheral cell glucose utilization, inhibition of intestinal glucose uptake, inhibition of adipocyte differentiation, suppression of key gluconeogenic enzymes, stimulation of key enzymes, HMP pathway and preservation of pancreatic islet cells and their functions. [Source: Joseph, Baby, and D Jini. “Antidiabetic effects of Momordica charantia (bitter melon) and its medicinal potency.” Asian Pacific Journal of Tropical Disease vol. 3,2 (2013): 93–102. doi:10.1016/S2222-1808(13)60052-3]
Being not-so-inclined to deep fry the bitterness away (though bittergourd vathals are indisputably yummy), our preferred way of having bittergourd has usually been in the form of a pitla or pitlai: something between an arachavitta sambar [sambar made with a fresh ground spice paste instead of powders] and a kootu. The recipe in Chandra Padmanabhan’s old cookbook, Dakshin, rather nails the pavakkai pitla perfectly with the addition not just of fresh coconut, but also coconut milk. Even there, though, you can only add so much pavakkai, and you do need the most tender of gourds to make the pitlai tolerable.
Enter Shravani of “My Curry Veda,” with her Nayanamma’s [grandmother’s] recipe for a stuffed kaakarakaya, roasted on the dying embers of a wood-and-dung-fired stove. Her recipe sounded quintessentially Andhra/ Telangana in its combination of dry coconut, peanuts, sesame, garlic and all those spice-sour-sweet elements that give Telugu cookery special distinction. It was one of those “aha!” moments: those are the very combinations I’d always used in making spicy peanut gunpowder balls with neem flowers, around Ugadi and sometimes in place of ugadi pacchadi. If that nutty-spicy-tamarind-jaggery combination worked with bitter neem flowers, why indeed not with whole bitter gourds. It felt and sounded perfectly en pointe, something that should have been clear all along.
In truth, though, Shravani had had me even before any ingredients had been listed, at “dying embers” if not at “Nayanamma” and certainly at “wood-and-dung-fired.” Having grown up with no grandmother and very few embers, dying or not, on any kind of stove, mine was what the anthropologist Arjun Appadurai has called “ersatz nostalgia—nostalgia without memory.” But damn if I was going to let that stop me from trying to recreate what I’d never had and what I truly missed.
The irony of this? No “storied encounter between grandmother and child” for me here–the stuff Sejal Sukhadwala complained about in the December 2021 Guardian article that got so many so riled up–but the way, indeed, many Indians are now learning how to cook: online. But it did all start with Shravani’s Nayanamma, and a yearning for something that hasn’t been there and therefore becomes all sepia-toned and mythologized–and that’s the point Sukhadwala might be missing.
Anyhoo, when I managed to convince Appa-Amma to bring back my pati’s kummiti aduppu from Kallidaikurichi, in early 2021, the die was cast. It is easy enough to steam these stuffed bitter gourds and then roast them indoors–a perfectly honest method. But the thought of what dimensions smoke-and-dung could add left me determined to go full hog on this one, much as I’d done before with that most beloved of Odia cheesecakes, the chhena poda pitha.
I’ve modified Shravani’s recipe in a few ways, mostly starting with whole nuts and spices and using no powders. I also found notes from conversations with another friend, Sweta, whose more Gujarati version uses besan/kadalai maavu/gram flour, aamchur instead of tamarind, and fried onions. I’ve incorporated a bit of both inspirations. So the stuffing is now pulled together with roasted kadalai maavu/gram flour for a bit of binding, and once the bittergourds are ready, they’re lightly fried again with sliced onions and lots more garlic. Just in case!
I also strongly advocate steaming the gourds first (as Sweta’s mother does) and then transferring them to either frying pan or fire. That two-step process gives you a lot better control over cooking, especially if the gourds aren’t the absolute freshest, which they almost never are. Plus you use less oil, if you’re not doing the dying embers thing.
Whatever process you choose, there’s little doubt that this recipe is sure to become [with a money-back guarantee] even for the most die-hard anti-bittergourd picky-eaters in your families the best way ever to fall in love with this vegetable—and to make the pasts that were lost to you really and truly your own.
The best stuffed pavakkai (bittergourd) ever
Equipment
- Cast iron or other heavy-bottomed pan to roast spices and later finish
- Bamboo or other flat-based steamer
- A charcoal stove or roti grill to flame-roast
Ingredients
- 8-10 tender Indian bitter gourds; see note.
For the stuffing
- ½ cup roasted peanuts
- ¼ cup sesame seeds
- ½ dry coconut or
- 3-4 red chillies/ ½ teaspoon red chilli powder
- 1 tablespoon coriander seeds/ ½ tablespoon coriander powder
- 1 tablespoon jeera seeds/ ½ tablespoon jeera powder
- 1/3 cup besan (gram flour or sattu maavu (black chana dal flour)
- A small lime-sized ball of deseeded tamarind
- 12 garlic cloves, roughly crushed
- 1 tablespoon jaggery or to taste
- Salt to taste
- 1-2 tablespoons peanut oil
For the finishing
- Up to ¼ cup peanut oil
- 1 teaspoon jeera seeds
- 5 garlic cloves, minced
- 2 medium sized red onions or shallots, sliced
Instructions
Prepare the bittergourds
- Wash the gourds and pat dry.
- With a sharp knife, make an incision down the length of each gourd. Gently pry the gourd open and insert your thumb, pushing inside to scrape out all the pith. Remove as much as you can. Don’t worry if the gourd tears a little, but it’s usually strong and leathery enough to withstand such incursions! Set aside.
Prepare the stuffing
- In cast iron or other heavy-bottomed pan on a medium-low flame, dry roast the peanuts, sesame seeds, dry coconut and whole spices (if you are using the powders, do not dry roast, but simply add them later). Keep mixing to prevent burning and/or uneven roasting, and remove from heat once they are fragrant.
- Transfer to a blender jar/food processor and allow to cool.
- Meanwhile, in the same pan, dry roast the besan or sattu flour just for a minute or so.
- Add to the awaiting blender jar and pulse until you have a coarse powder.
- To the same blender jar, add the tamarind, garlic, jaggery, salt, turmeric powder and any spice powders you’re using (if you did not use the whole spices in the first stuffing step, that is).
- Pulse again until the tamarind is well incorporated and the mixture is becoming powdery. A little chunky and not completely uniform is completely fine.
- Adjust taste—you want an intense mixture of nuttiness, spice, salt, and sour-sweet.
- Transfer to a bowl and add 1-2 tablespoons of peanut oil, or just enough to make the mixture clump together more readily.
Prepare the bittergourds
- Stuff the gourds with the prepared peanut mixture. Be generous and pack them in! But do set aside 2-3 tablespoons of the stuffing for the finishing step that comes later.
- Now get a steamer ready and place the stuffed gourds in 1-2 layers on the top rack. A bamboo steamer or metal vegetable steamer equivalent is best; idli steamers will be cumbersome to work with. Steam at a full boil for about 10-15 minutes.
- Meanwhile, light up the charcoal stove or prepare your roti grill (if indoors). You can skip the fire-roasting step if you like though it adds much to taste – and skip ahead to finishing.
- Once the bittergourds are mostly tender from steaming transfer them gently to the roti grill or charcoal layer of the stove. Keep a close eye on them and move them around every few minutes or so or they will burn. Rotate them as much as you can—but avoid getting the stuffing in direct contact with any flame.
- Once the gourds are nicely charred, transfer to a plate.
Finishing the dish
- In the same pan you used earlier to roast spices, heat a few tablespoons of oil. If you skipped the fire-roasting step earlier, be generous with the oil.
- Drop in the cumin/jeera, follow quickly with garlic and then the sliced onions. Fry until translucent, and then spread the onions out a little and add the bittergourds on top in a single layer, stuffed side up.
- Sprinkle any remaining stuffing/the stuffing you set aside earlier on top. Reduce the flame to low and roast, turning the gourds and mixing in the onion-garlic and stuffing powder with the bitter gourds so it all coats the outsides of the gourds nicely.
- The gourds are done when you can poke a knife through with minimal resistance. They are never going to get very mushy, so don’t aim for that!
- If you’ve fire-roasted, then finish this last frying quickly. If you haven’t fire-roasted, then go slowly on this step, allow the gourds to char a little alongside onions in the pan. You may want to pile the onions on top of the gourds while mixing so they come in direct contact with the heavy pan and its heat for a few minutes here and there.
- Transfer to a plate and serve with hot rice and a nice simple dal.
Notes
- Do not use the more cuke-like Chinese bitter melons. The Indian bitter gourds can be longer or shorter-and-plumper, but they should be tender and they will always have a thick leathery skin that’s easy to empty of its seeds and stuff. These also stand up to the heat of a charcoal stove much better than any other variety.
- You can if you wish substitute the red chillies, coriander and cumin for their equivalents in powders—estimate roughly and adjust to taste.
- Tamarind can be substituted for amchoor, for a different (less Andhra, more Gujarati/Maharashtrian) souring taste
