केल्याने देशाटन : Karela Kalonji Subji

Karela Subzi with Kalonji

केल्याने देशाटन, पंडित मैत्री, सभेत संचार, मनुजा चातुर्य येत असे. 

Wisdom comes from worldwide travels, association with scholars and proximity of peers.  

The last 18 months have been one long tour of the world through food, photos and friends on Facebook. I have reconnected with long lost friends and family, learnt and laughed with and also found new buddies.  Actively interacting with hundreds of likeminded people in dozens of groups, I have nurtured interests ranging from culinary arts, comedy, to classical music.

And that’s what this Marathi maxim is all about. 

Facebook has become almost a whole-of-life experience for so many. The food groups on Facebook in particular have been a fun-n-learn experience. We read and try out so many new recipes. It’s good to feel validated when others cook like us or like what we cook. We learn so much about ingredients and processes and exchange notes and tips. We give in to the juggernauts; the fad Chinese tangzhong bread or the laadi pav that sees a groundswell, or the epidemic of idlis that smites the pages. 

Such inspiration and impetus, chatting and plotting, lauding and ribbing…

I joined a Facebook food group on impulse, without receiving any caveat that I would be hooked for life. In the beginning, I only saw updates on my newsfeed, and contributed my two cents once or twice. But I was largely at the receiving end.

Once I recovered from my disdain of mustard oil (and how much of it!) and got used to discounting and re-calibrating the 10-15 green chillies, a tablespoon of Kuti Lal, plus a few dried red chillies in the recipe, I began this tryst and trials with new tastes, textures and techniques.

How else would I have learnt about how timur (a Himalayan cousin of the Szechuan pepper) tingles the tongue! Would I have dared boil a can of condensed milk in water for over 2 hours for the Dulce De Leche, or bake a Chrissy cake for 4 hours without fear of setting off the sprinklers in the apartment! And the knowledge geek in me was hugely happy to discover that Banarasi kalonji baingan gets its name courtesy the masala with the five-spice tempering called panch- foran, and not just the one, the kalonji!

The dish I am presenting today was inspired by my friend Atul Sikand,  progenitor of the phenomenal Facebook group (yes, the first one I joined) Sikandalous Cuisine. Atul had made a Bharwan Karela (stuffed bitter melon) with kalonji (nigella) seeds. I had never really had known the use of kalonji, having eaten the fragrant black seeds only on occasional peshawari naans, and maybe a dish here and there previously.

The unassuming little black seed takes the dish to new heights of savouriness with the perfect blend of bitter, sweet, salty, sour and the onion like taste lends the umami – and activates the 10,000 odd taste buds on your tongue in the process -indeed a whole-of-life experience in itself!

I would say wisdom comes from worldwide travels, association with scholars and proximity of peers... and karela subzi with kalonji.

Karela Kalonji Sabji

Ingredients

2 cups of karela, seeds removed if they are hard and cut into an inch squares (the karelas in Oz are not very bitter at all, so I don’t remove its juice…)

½ cup chopped tomatoes

1 teaspoon tamarind paste or amchur powder or lemon juice as per taste

1 teaspoon kalonji seeds

1 tablespoon gur (or more)

1 teaspoon chilly powder (or more)

1 teaspoon cumin powder

1 tablespoon coriander powder

½ teaspoon mustard seeds

½ teaspoon turmeric

A pinch of hing

2 tablespoons oil (or more)

Salt to taste

Method

Heat oil in a pan and add the mustard seeds to splutter. Add turmeric and hing the sliced karela and sauté for a few minutes until tender. Add the spice powders, chilly powder and the kalonji seeds. Add a little water and cover and cook until almost cooked. Now add the tomatoes and cook further till they become soft and saucy and add gur, tamarind/amchur/lemon juice, salt to taste and cook until all the tastes come together.

Switch off the heat and serve hot. This subzi dish goes well with rice or rotis/jowar rotis or phulkas. Tastes better the next day when all the flavours deepen!

My bitter friend!

Baked Stuffed Karela with Kalonji!
 

That karelas or bitter gourds are an acquired taste because of their bitterness is common knowledge, but why does this acquisition come usually with age? This mystery was solved for me the other day when the masters on Masterchef Australia were discussing how children have taste buds that can better sense sweet and sour and that many kids do not have taste buds to savour the bitter taste! Makes sense, since most of us karela lovers have developed the taste for the bitter vegetable slowly, being lured by adults who cook, eat and rave about karelas with such indulgence and relish! The moral of the story is, if your kids do not like karelas, don’t despair. Wait till they grow up and always praise and describe the virtues of the karela, taste wise and also health wise!

Another theory, humbly postulated by yours truly, is that the karela dishes we prepare have an abundance of tastes like sweet, sour, salty, umani from onions and in this instance the kalonji seeds, and the bitter taste from the karela. All these five tastes coming together give us the most amazing and complete sensory experience and activate the taste buds on the tongue and the scattered ones in the mouth in an explosion!

That’s the reason perhaps why the world is divided into two types of people, those who absolutely love karela and those who detest it!!

Being a member of the former fraternity (or sorority?) I consider myself lucky that we get the bitter gourd in Australia. But they are humongous karelas - about 8-9 inches long and about 2-3 inches in diameter, unlike the small ones in India. The upside is that these karelas are fleshy and not as bitter, so we don’t lose any nutrients in trying to salt the juice out! But in terms of taste, nothing beats the Indian karelas!

This baked stuffed karela dish is inspired by Atul Sikand’s recipe of karela with kalonji. I had never tried cooking with kalonji before, but once I tried this little seeds, the whole house was agog with the fragrance and we were sold on it forever!

Ingredients

One large karela (for the NRIs) – Resident Indians can figure out how many karelas they want to cook and make the stuffing accordingly. There is no hard and fast rule about the filling- you can stuff anything that in your experience goes well with karelas. The recipe highlights the concept mainly!

Ingredients

1 medium boiled and roughly mashed potato
1 small onion, chopped
1 small tomato chopped
½ teaspoon garlic chopped
½ teaspoon ginger finely chopped
1 teaspoon garam masala
1 teaspoon green or red chilly powder (increase if you want)
1 teaspoon gur/sugar/sweetener (the sweet and sour tastes are important to balance the slight bitterness of the karela.
1 teaspoon lemon juice or amchur (dry mango) powder
A pinch of haldi
1 teaspoon kalonji seeds
Salt to taste
2 tablespoons Oil
Tomato slices for garnishing


Method

Trim the ends of the karela and slit it open as widely as you can without snapping it into two. Remove seeds. Salt lightly and steam in the microwave for two minutes in a covered dish with a tablespoon of water. Allow to cool.

In a little oil, sauté the onions, garlic, ginger and when softened add the haldi, tomatoes, garam masala, chilly powder and gur/sugar. Add the boiled grated potato, lemon juice or amchur powder and salt to taste. Mix everything and turn off heat. Remember we are not going to cook the stuffing fully here.

Brush the insides of the karela with a little oil and stuff it with the potato mixture.
Lightly grease a suitable baking dish (I used a loaf tin) and drizzle oil over the karela. Arrange the tomato slices and sprinkle the kalonji seeds generously on top.

Bake in a hot oven till the karela is done and browned lightly and even the tomato slices are browned. Baste once in between with the rest of the oil. The karela should take about 20 - 25 minutes to bake.

Since there is a bit of tasty oil in the pan, it’s an idea to serve the karela on a bed of plain basmati rice to mop up the oil. You may want to add some more tadka / tempered oil to the rice so that you can slice the karela and eat it mixed with the rice!