Pavakkai Pulikachal

Pulikachal, a traditional south Indian Tam-bram dish gets an interesting makeover here. I was talking to my aunt recently and she mentioned lot of interesting recipes that her mil used to make. One of it was pavakkai (bitter gourd) pulikachal. The moment I heard it I was intrigued. I have been wanting to try pavakkai thokku for a while now and when I heard about this pulikachal, I decided to try that instead.Me and my mil discussed and came up with this recipe here 🙂 We were pretty excited because it tasted really good. It is not too bitter as the bitterness is balanced out by the tamarind, salt and jaggery. It tasted really good with some rice and sesame oil. So here goes the recipe –

Method:

Add some more water to the soaked tamarind and extract about 21/2 cups of tamarind juice and set aside.

Add a small pinch of salt and turmeric powder to the chopped bitter gourd and set it aside for 15 minutes. The bitter gourd will leave out water. Discard the water and set it aside. This will take some of the bitterness off the bitter gourd.

Dry roast the coriander seeds, red chilly, fenugreek seeds and pepper corns and grind it to a smooth powder

In a pan, add the sesame oil and add the items given under to temper. Let the mustard seeds crackle and urad dal turn golden brown.

Now add the bitter gourd and saute for about 3 minutes until they are cooked partially.

Then add the tamarind water, ground powder, salt and let it boil in a medium flame.

Let it cook in a medium flame until the oil starts separating and it becomes thick. Add the jaggery at this stage and adjust salt as needed.

Store it in an air tight container and mix with rice when needed 🙂