BITTER GOURD- KAIPAIKKA-PAVAIKKA Dearfriends,
I foundhot PITLA inthe dining table prepared for meals when I went for tiffin. I was late fortiffin today. I thought pitla can be side dish along with iddali. Feelinghappy, I thought today my posting can be about Bitter gourd. Somevarieties of bitter gourd are really bitter, some varieties not feel bitter. In Tamilnadu the bitter gourdsare dark green in appearance. In Kerala it is light green. I haveseen my wife boiling cut bitter gourd for dishes adding tamarind and the wateris drained. This makes bitter gourd not so bitter. Many ofour vegetables have excellent appearance. One of them is bitter gourd. Eithergrown or fully ripen, bitter gourd appear very nice to look. While fully ripenthe flush dark red cover over the seeds inside is SWEET and very good to eat. I have doubted why bitter guard flush over seedstaste so sweet in my childhood days. Seethe nature’s way of spreading. For the sweetness of the flush, the birds wouldeat the flesh and the seeds placed anywhere and it get germinated. I studied later One ofthe plants which we can grow easily is bitter gourd in the gardens or even inpots. It is a creeping plant and after growing for about 5 feet we can providesupport and grow over fencing wire. If space is there we can permit it tospread. Normally in farms support provided to grow up and spread over a framework called pandaland some shade is provided. Often without seeding, from thrown out bitter gourdseeds after meals, we can see bitter gourd sprouting in the backside of kitchenin independent homes. Let me go more in to bitter gourds Sincerely, Gopala Krishnan30-4-2021 1. Pavaikka kitchadi In ourcentral Travancore one of the items is Thair (Curd) kitchadi served in Sraadhato Bhokthas. Pavaikka (Bitter gourd) is cleaned, cut to thin pieces breadthwise, well fried in ghee/oil is added as a kashanam in the Thair kitchadi. It wasthe practice of my father to get two bigger size Pavaikka and three or four vazhuthananga well beforesraadha and keeps ready. Vazhuthanaga Poduthooval is a must in our areas forsraadha. Irecollect in some areas Brinjalis prohibited to use in srardha since it is used in the funeralground by the kartha as responded in an earlier posting by Sri Narayanaswamy. I amnot sure whether such a use in funeral ground is there in central Kerala. We couldsee the Brahmins relishing the fried pavaikka added. Many bhokthas would dip the Methuvadai served inthe kitchadi and eat during the meals. Normally the sraadha Brahmins are servedkitchadi two or three times till they say or show sign as no morerequired. Best curd, best quality bitter gourd are used in srardha. 1a. Kitchadi on daily serving Not onlyin sraadha, even during feasts, kitchadi is an important item served on the topright hand side of the leaf. Many persons like to take rice mixed withkitchadi, many likes to take the rice added with pappadam. In feasts a second serving ofkitchadi is made for those who ask for serving. Thoughnot regular occasionally in houses too kitchadi is prepared for birth day andsimilar functions. Mostliked kashanam is pavaikka in kitchadi. 2. Pavaikka mezhukku puratti. Pavaikkais cut breadthwise, the seeds inside alone removed, washed well, boiled with turmeric/tamarind,chilly and salt and the water is drained well. Some do a 2ndfiltering adding again water. By this most of the bitterness isremoved from it. If the pavaikka is tender, the seeds need not be removed. Itwill taste good. Seeds are edible. Afterthis the pavaikka is fried in cheenachatti till the water gets dried addingsufficient oil. Some like half fried and half boiledpavaikka. 3. Pavaikka thoran Whether thorancan be prepared with pavaikka? Yes. Here the bitter guard should be with less bitterness.It is cut in to small pieces, half boiled with turmeric powder and salt andwater filtered out. It is put in a pan and coconut flower, green chilli cut, gingercut etc. added and when it becomes almost dry fried mustard and curry leaves areadded. Served hot, it would taste very nice and bitterness would never felt. 4. Kadamba sambar I havefound in hotels menu in Chennai as Kadamba sambar and invariably pavaikka cut breadthwisewould be there. Boiled in Tamarind water, really the Pavaikka kashanam has aspecial taste. 5. Speciality with Pavaikka Even inBrinjal we can remove the external skin after boiling, it is not possible to remove theexternal skin separately from Pavaikka. If we cut the external skin, thebitterness would be MUCH MORE. 6. Prameham and pavaikka (Diabetics and bittergourd) Fromolden days for diabetic patients bitter guard preparations is told good. Thereis an ayurvedic preparation called Mehari dravam which has a good percentage ofbitter gourd. My note- Thosewho are TAKING INSULIN, NO AYRVEDIC PREPARATIONS are advised to take alongwith. They can take bitter guard in food - not ayurvedic preparations. 7. Kaippaikka kondattam ForKerala Nampoothiries Pavaikka is kaippaikka and mezhukkupuratti is kondattam.It is a favourite dish for nampoothries. 8. Gundu pavaikka This is avery small variety of bitter guard to the size of above our thumb. Many timesit is found in the local market in Chennai. 9. Fully ripen pavaikka Fullyripen pavaikka is orange green in colour. Normally the cultivators pluck thebitter guard well before this stage. Fully ripen will have no strength in theexternal skin and simply get break of. It is not at all good in dishes. Normallycultivators leave a few for ripening for the seeds for future cultivation.Seeds merchants used to have bitter guard seeds for sale and most of the seeds germinate. 10. Pavaikka vatthal Mostprobably with Brahmins, the vatthal preparation is common. Here the pavaikka iscut breadthwise in to small disc forms of about 2 millimeters thick. Just put in boiled water adding turmericpowder, a small quantity of tamarind and salt. It is dried after filtering thewater on perambu. These dried pieces will have brownish colour. This isfried in oil and used as a side dish with rice and curd. Sometimes the fried pieces are added as kashanam in sambar.Tastes good. 11. Tidier kitchadi Now it isquite common to fry this pavaikka vatthal and add to kitchadi during feasts andin hotels when served. Many shops in Chennai are having Pavaikka vatthal readypacked. In houses too it is not rare once a while making pavaikka kitchadi likethis. 12. The outer appearance. The outerappearance of bitter guard is special with so many zig zag non uniform thornlike finishing. The lengthy Bitter guards are more preferred. In Kerala thebitter guard with yellowish green appearance is common and called natan. The one withdark green are called Pandi.The natan will have less bitterness. 14. Caution in growing etc. Whilecleaning and cutting one must carefully observe for worms inside. If worms are there itshould be discarded. It is observed snakes dislike the smell ofbitter guard. I do nothow there is a usage - kitchenkitchadi. There are many Krishancalled Kitcha among iyers. Probably some kitchens favoured more kitchadi andthe usage. This is a posting re written with additions andediting of the one posted on 15-10-2011. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Thatha_Patty" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/thatha_patty/207158762.1812464.1619787427250%40mail.yahoo.com.
