It’s been raining hard for the past one week here. I’d have grown a sprout from my head if I were a seed. It’s been so much and non-stop drizzle. With all this wet rainy weather, I wasn’t doing much cooking for the past couple of days and yesterday, ridge gourd came to my rescue.
I have never tasted a ridge gourd dish that I didn’t like. Be it a simple homely dal with toordal, or cooked in coconut, milk or in tomato sauce… I like all versions of ridge gourd preparations. “Superlative” says SH of Saffron Hut and I totally agree with her. It is like potato, easily likable and adaptable to any type of recipe. This chutney I am writing about today is one such recipe.
Some vegetables suit for chutneys and some don’t. Of all the vegetable based chutneys, ridge gourd chutney is the best in my view. The sweetness of the ridge gourd perfectly complements the hot and sour flavors of onion, chillies and tamarind. The chutney will be a perfect side dish with hot rice and dal, or for tortilla chips dip. If you like the taste of ridge gourd and if you haven’t tried chutney with it, then you have to try this recipe. This is A+, I tell you!
Recipe:
1 Ridge gourd (beerakaya) – Peel the outer ridges, wash and cut into big chunks
1 medium sized onion – cut into big chunks
6-8 small green chillies – each cut into two or three pieces
1 garlic clove – peeled and halved
½ tablespoon of freshly squeezed tamarind juice
¼ teaspoon of salt or to taste
1 teaspoon of peanut oil
A skillet and a mortal and pestle or a blender
1 Heat peanut oil in an iron skillet on medium-high heat.
2 Add and sauté the ridge gourd, onion, green chillies and garlic until light brown. Turn off the heat and wait for 10 minutes to cool.
3 Take them in mortar, add tamarind and salt. Using the pestle make a coarse paste or you could do that in a blender, but use ‘pulse’ button few times.
4 Remove into a cup and serve with rice/chapatis or as a veggie dip for chips.
Ridge gourd chutney, Dal and Rice (Beera kaya pacchadi mariyu pappu annam) ~ My Comfort Food
Indira: You make me nostaligic for my grandmom’s Peerkangai Thogayal.Similar concept except its ridgegourd with standard thogayal ingredients i.e Urad dal, dried red chillies and Tamarind. All roasted and coarsely ground just as per your technique. My grandmoms and my mom have a whole arsenal of thogayals- brinjal, yellow pumpkin, toor dal , beetroot, coriander, pudina, a creeper we call perandai (Cissus quadrangularis) to name just a few…
Also have bean meaning to tell you.. I really like your employing the juice of the tamarind vs. grinding the tamarind itself which is what we normally do. Esp. with the osterizer, I find this a much smarter technique since sometimes it is rather hard to ensure that the tamarind gets well blended.
Comment by Janani — May 19, 2006 @ 11:28 am
Hai indira,
Lovely recipe, i guess by now that your favourite vegetable must be the ridge gourd, i have seen you post the maximum number of recipes on this vegetable. I think it is one versatile vegetable which tastes good in any form you cook.
Shayna
Comment by shayna — May 19, 2006 @ 12:03 pm
I know, I too feel nostalgic whenever I prepare this type of chutneys.
I’ll give it a try with ural dal and dried red chillies, next time. Sounds wonderful!
Yep, here because of cold weather the tamarind turns into small pieces of concrete slab, that hard and they would get stuck in blenders, particularly for this type of ‘no-water’ chutney preparations. Soaking them in water or microwaving for few minutes helps a lot to loosen it up.:)
Thanks Janani.
Hi Shayna: You got it right, I LOVE the taste of ridge gourd. 🙂
Comment by Indira — May 19, 2006 @ 12:08 pm
We make peerkangai thogayal just like what Janani has mentioned. I have never tried making them though.
I’ve had beerakaya pacchadi in one of my friends house. I mixed them with little cooked white rice .Loved it !! But dint have any recipe for. And now that you have posted , iam defintely gonna try it soon. Thank you for the recipe dear !!
Comment by Priya — May 19, 2006 @ 12:42 pm
Hi Indira,
I’d have grown a sprout from my head if I were a seed LOL! that was funny.
One thing, you dont take the seeds out of the ridgegourd?
Comment by L.G — May 19, 2006 @ 12:48 pm
Yummy!! After seeing all the veggie dishes you make, I feel like to become a veggie!! They look so yummy, I think they will taste better than meat & fish. I have done a presentation on vegetarianism for my school a few years ago. I was persuading the audience to be vegetarians, even then I didn’t think I want to be a veggie.
Comment by RP — May 19, 2006 @ 1:48 pm
Hi Indira,
You were the first one to intrduce me to ridge gourd. I absolutely love it now. I have tried almost all the recipes you posted on it…this one is definitely going to get bookmarked as well!
Comment by Nabeela — May 19, 2006 @ 1:50 pm
wow the ridgegourd chutney looks ggggoood!!!wish i could have a taste of it…um…
Comment by BDSN — May 19, 2006 @ 2:00 pm
Aaaah, you have brought back my hostel days memories Indira…most of the time the food would be bad and I would fall back on curd rice with this pachadi.
In my childhood, I never liked this vegetable, but I used to relish the pachadi that my mom used to make out of its peel!! Have you ever tasted or made it?
Comment by Supriya — May 19, 2006 @ 3:21 pm
Hi Indira,
I am a constant visitor to your site and i love your recipes. they are so traditional. These days i love them even more because i am expecting and each recipe takes me back to my childhood days.
Thanks for the great work!!!!!
Comment by Uma — May 19, 2006 @ 4:59 pm
Hi Indira!
You can’t imagine how much i love any recipie that is made with beerakaya. Still when i go to india, i’ll call my mom and ask her to cook Beerakaya pacchadi on the day i’ll be arriving. very nice recipie. thanks again for your wonderful recipies.
Comment by bharghavi — May 19, 2006 @ 6:06 pm
Hi Indira,
I do make this chutney with that peel and whole. i learnt from mom.Really tasty with hot rice,Indira
Vineela
Comment by vineela krishna — May 19, 2006 @ 6:41 pm
hi Indira,
YOU always make recipes taste good just by looking at your pictures and also make varities of dishes out of one vegetable.Thats cool,Love it.
Thanks for sharing.
Comment by RADHA — May 19, 2006 @ 8:37 pm
All of you living in US are so lucky,atleast you all have access to the vegetables we are familiar with in India!Here in Switz we can find them only in Indian shops,which are also very few in number and are present in only few cities!
Comment by Sumitha — May 20, 2006 @ 5:06 am
WOW! that’s an amazing recipe! i must try it asap…
Have got Ridgegourd lying in the fridge…and i keep looking at it and wondering…”how else do i cook you fellas?” 😉
You’re a major inspiration to many food bloggers Indira… really… bowled over by you
Comment by lavannya — May 20, 2006 @ 6:46 am
A little smelly, well very smelly, for those who aren’t used to it, but ridged gourd chutney tastes great with fermented soyabean, like tempeh, popular in Asia… Almost same way you have prepared, then add the soya at the end…
Comment by tony — May 21, 2006 @ 12:52 am
There’s something about ridgegourd !! Is it in season worldwide or what?? I can see a whole lot of food bloggers featuring this baby- I love to make the peerkangai thuvaiyal-have even blogged about it. This one seems one step short with the addition of onions. Will surely try it 🙂
Comment by Nandita — May 21, 2006 @ 10:17 am
Hi Indira,
Great recipe. I like ridge gourd in any form.
Comment by menutoday — May 21, 2006 @ 8:20 pm
Hi Indira,
“I’ld have sprouted if I were a seed” just cracked me up :).
Ridgegourd is my family’s most favourite veggie. I have a different version of the chutney…Saute ridgegourd in a tsp of oil with 1tsp tamarind juice and salt. Toast popu and when cool, grind popu first, then add ridgegourd. We just love it with rice or roti.
Needless to say, I am going to try your recipe just as soon as I get a ridgegourd from the Indian store.
Thanks for sharing.
Pavani.
Comment by Pavani — May 23, 2006 @ 3:00 pm
Hi Indira,
I tried to make this recipe but was not able to achieve the color nor was it tasty. Couldnt make out what have I done wrong. I used tamarind concentrate and rest everything was the same. Do you think this might be the reason?
Any tips?
Deepa.
Comment by Deepa — September 22, 2006 @ 4:17 pm
Hi Indira,
I loved ur recipe.. I jus shyed away with the chilli a bit, thought it ll be too spicy. Deepa even I used the concentrate, but it turned out good.
Comment by Aparna — January 9, 2008 @ 12:14 pm
I tried this today for the first time in my life. Landed here through google…..all I can say…
“I love you’
it was that good
Cheers
Ganny
Comment by Ganesh — December 7, 2008 @ 5:49 pm
Hi Indira,
Can you post calorie information for this dish (Beerakaya Pacchadhi). Thanks for sharing the recipe i will try this dish soon and will post the results.
Thanks
Sobha
Comment by Shoba Kumari — April 7, 2009 @ 4:25 am
Hi Indira,
I am an avid follower of your blog. I tried making this at home today. Somehow it was very bitter. Could it be because of the veggie itself?
Hi Raji,
Some varieties of beerakaya get very bitter, and farmers usually throw away this crop. Very rarely they make it to market. I am sorry that you had to experience the bitter beerakaya. One way to prevent this from happening again is, before adding to chutney, curries or dal, cut beerakaya to small pieces and have a small bite to verify that it is of good quality.
-Indira
Comment by Raji — June 19, 2009 @ 1:01 am
Indira,
I have been visiting your website for past 7years and I just love each and everyone of them.
Thanks for the easy and tasteful recipes!!!
Ash
Comment by Ashwini — October 5, 2012 @ 5:23 pm
Your receipes are exactly like my mom’s.I hail from rayalaseema region and whenever i want to make something i will call up my mother..i dont see the need now..i can just browse your blog..I made alasanda vada..was a big hit just like mom’s..Thanks for authentic regional receipes..
Comment by sujana — November 5, 2014 @ 7:58 pm