Beerakaya Pachadi
Ridge gourd cooked down with dals and red chilli until the water is gone, then ground coarse — a mild, everyday Andhra chutney.
Drafted — not yet cooked in our kitchen
- Hands on
- 21 min
- Total
- 21 min
- Serves
- 6
- Difficulty
- easy
Ridge gourd is nearly all water, and a chutney made from it fails in exactly one way: you stop cooking too early and end up with something thin that slides off the rice. Cook it uncovered and wait for the pan to go dry, however long that takes.
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Ingredients
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Method
Peel the ridges off with a peeler, taking only the hard green edges and leaving as much of the pale skin as you can — that skin is where most of the flavour sits. Cut into 2 cm pieces.
Look for: Cut flesh should be white and firm with soft pale seeds. Brown-ringed seeds or a spongy centre means it is old — that one will cook to slime.
5–7 min
Heat 1 tbsp of the sesame oil in a kadai on medium. Add the chana dal and urad dal, and when they start to colour, the red chillies and the cumin. Take the lot out onto a plate.
Look for: Both dals an even light gold and smelling toasted. Chana dal takes longer than urad, so give it a head start of about a minute.
3–5 min · medium heat · kadai
In the same kadai, add the remaining oil and the garlic, then the ridge gourd and the turmeric. Cook it uncovered on medium — covered, it steams and you will be boiling water off for twice as long.
Look for: It floods with water in the first few minutes, then dries back. Done is when the pieces are soft enough to crush against the side of the pan and there is no free liquid pooling at the base — tilt the kadai and nothing should run.
10–14 min · medium heat · kadai
Let it cool. Grind the roasted dals and chillies to a coarse powder first, then add the gourd, the tamarind and the salt and grind again — no water, the gourd has enough.
Look for: Thick and slightly grainy from the dal, holding its shape on a spoon.
2–4 min · mixer-grinder
Heat the groundnut oil in a small pan on medium-high. Mustard seeds, then urad dal, then curry leaves and asafoetida with the pan off the flame. Pour it over.
Look for: Mustard popping steadily, urad dal gold, curry leaves crisp.
1–2 min · medium-high heat · kadai
About this dish
Save the peels. Rinsed, chopped and toasted with the same dals, the ridges make a chutney of their own — that is the Karnataka way with this vegetable and it is worth knowing, but it is a separate dish, not a variation on this one. This is the mildest of the pachadis and the one to make when the rest of the meal is fiery. It keeps two days in the fridge and thickens; a spoon of hot water brings it back.