Beerakaya/Ridge Gourd Rice

Since I love Ridge gourd, I keep trying different ways to make dishes with this wonderful vegetable and each time I make something different, my love for it increases more and more. This is so versatile and goes with anything or everything anytime. This dish too, surprisingly turned out very tasty but eat it when it is hot to enjoy the right taste. Add a bit of ghee for that extra taste, but beware of extra calories too!

1 ridge gourd, peeled and cut into small pieces

1 cup cooked rice

1 onion, cut length-wise

3 tbsp sesame seeds

3-4 dried red chillies

3 green chillies, cut into small pieces

few curry leaves

1/2 tsp turmeric

salt to taste

3 tbsp oil

few cashews

coriander leaves for garnishing

1. Fry sesame seeds and red chillies without adding any oil until golden brown. Cool them and grind to powder.
2. Heat oil in a pan, add onion, green chillies, curry leaves and fry until onions turn brown.
3. Add ridge gourd, salt, turmeric and cook on low flame until ridge gourd pieces turn soft.
4. Add rice and the sesame, red chilli grounded powder.
5. Garnish with coriander leaves and friend cashews.

Serve hot with plain yogurt or raita.

Alternately: Without adding rice, you can use the same thing as curry and eat with Chapatis.

Birayaka Menthem (Turai and Methi)

This is one of my favorite all time comfort foods. I love to eat this anytime of the day and on any day. I used to ask my mom to make this when I got sick in my childhood. I felt that eating this would make me energetic again. Somehow, I like all the curries made with Birakaya. I don’t know if this curry is an Andhra recipe but it is Hyderabadi for sure.

This tastes delicious when cooked with fresh ridge gourd. And it goes very well with both chapathis and rice. I ate this two times in a day already. For breakfast I ate with chapathi and for lunch with rice. You see how much I love this, but I regret that it was not made by my Mom, and that would have been much tastier. I grow Methi at home 2 or 3 days before I plan to cook this curry. Fresh methi makes a huge difference (we cook with small methi and not the big one-I never tried with the big one).

To make this you’ll need…

1 medium birakaya/ turai/ ridge gourd, skin removed and chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
1 large tomato, chopped
1 cup water
½ cup methi
1 tbsp red chilli powder
1 tbsp ginger-garlic paste
¼ tbsp turmeric
¼ tbsp garam masala
3 tbsp oil
Salt to taste

1. Heat oil in a cooking pan and add onions and cook until they turn brown.
2. Add birakaya and cook for 2 mins.
3. Add tomato and methi, mix everything and cover the dish.
4. Cook until the birakaya is cooked well. Keep mixing in between.
5. Add turmeric, red chilli powder, ginger garlic paste and cook for a minute.
6. Add water and cover it. Simmer it for 5 mins.
7. Add salt at the end and remove.
   

Serve hot either with chapatis or hot rice.

Birakaya Pappu

This is one kind of dal/pappu that Andhra guys die for. And the taste and the process of making this differs from region to region. This is the kind of recipe that my mom makes and I made this on the weekend.

When I got sick in my childhood, I used to think of eating this curry to get back that depleted energy. I love this so much in any way. We make dal(we use either tool dal, or moong dal), stuffed birakaya, or cook with methi or milk and make some snacks during summer.

I usually cook a lot of toor dal together and use little everyday to make a variety of dals for the next two or three days.

I made this recipe with toor dal this time. Eat this by adding little ghee and you would realise how heavenly the taste is.



You need...

1 birakaya (peeled and chopped)
1 Tomato (chopped)
few red chillies
few curry leaves
1 tbsp each of jeera, mustard
1 tbsp ginger garlic paste
2 cups cooked toor dal
a pinch of turmeric
1/2 tbsp red chilli powder
2 tbsp oil
salt to taste

1. Heat the oil in a pan and fry jeera, mustard until you hear the popping sound. Add red chillies and curry leaves and cook for a minute.
2. Add birayaka and cook until soft.
3. Add tomatoes and ginger garlic paste and cook for about 5 minutes.
4. Add turmeric, red chilli powder and salt and mix them all.
5. Add the cooked toor dal and stir for a minute. Reduce heat and cook for another 3 mins.

Serve hot with rice and ghee, it tastes great.