it grows small (baseball size) and transitions from flower to fruit like this.
we have quite the miracle creeper which was planted around november 2009, harvested in feb-march 2010, let it be till june 2010 when it re-energised itself and now, we are enjoying a glorious second innings.
classically used as a vegetable in sambars and gravies, we have also used in a simple dry curry (poriyal) with coconut garnishing.
annamalai, a veteran from the neighbouring village, is our full time consultant for agriculture, etc and is also the resident fireman (chief manager of the kitchen fire).
and he suggested the peanut twist. and we made it twice and it has become one of our several signature dishes.
Ingredients (for 3 people)
1. pumpkin (peeled and cubed)- 5oo gms
2. peanuts (roasted and coarsely crushed) - 3 handfuls
3. oil
4. red chillies - 3/4 nos
5. mustard seeds (rai/kadugu) - 2 tsps
6. bengal gram (channa dal/kadalai paruppu) - 2 tbsps
7. broken green gram (urad dal/ulutham prauppu) - 2 tbsps
8. salt
Method
heat oil in kadai. add mustard seeds, red chillies, both dals and as the dals start darkening, add the pumpkin cubes.
depending on the tenderness, we have cooked the whole pumpkin once and once we removed the central portion with the seeds.
keep on a low flame and let the pumpkin cook in its own water (i.e., do not add water). keep the kadai closed, but stir the poriyal from time to time.
in 5 mins or so, add the required amount of salt, stir a bit and close and cook on low flame for 5 more mins.
now sprinkle the crushed peanut powder and stir. and here it is.
garnish with coriander.
just lovely.
3 comments:
Is this a traditional variety of poochanikai? Earlier pumpkins used to be uniformly orange inside, but the recent varieties (mostly from Mahyco - Monsanto combine, the dominant seed company in TN), the inside is a mix of green and yellow, the odd thing is that the green and yellow layers are not uniform, the green layer may be thicker at one spot, and thinner elsewhere. Similar thing with white/green colors in guava.
yes. it is fully orange inside. depending on the age of the fruit, the intensity of the orange varies.
am confirming from 2 obvious indicators:
1. seeds we got was from annamalai from his earlier harvest.
2. the size - nothing that grows this size will be a hybrid/commercial.
thanks for the heads up on this and guava.
btw - why stay anon?
sounds delicious!
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