Snake Gourd Fry

Names: Padavalanga Thoran / പടവലങ്ങ തോരന്‍

My mom is very scared of this vegetable. It is a very long vegetable, very nutritious and delicious. Due to its shape, it is called snake gourd. My mom would never make this, since she was scared of it :-).

I love this vegetable. It is sooo very hard to get it fresh in U.S. But I got it last week at our vegetable vendor. The dish is called Padavalanga thoran back home. I forgot to click a picture of the snake gourd vegetable as whole.

For 3 cup snake gourd cut into very tiny pieces. Scrape lightly the skin before cutting.

Grated coconut - 1/2 cup, cumin seeds - 1/2tsp, garlic - 1 pod, 1/4 tsp turmeric powder - coarse grind or better just crush everything together.

Heat 1 tsp e.v olive oil, splutter 1 tsp mustard seeds, whole chili broken into two, curry leaves,5 shallots diced - Sauté in that order.

Add the cut gourd and sauté for 5 minutes. Sprinkle 1 tsp water, add salt and cover tightly and cook in low flame. After 6 or 7 minutes or so or until 3/4th cooked (it should be crunchy),add the coconut mixture in the middle and cover the mixture with the gourd pieces and cover and cook again for 5 more minutes or until soft and done. This is a dry side dish for rice with some gravy.My mom makes excellent sauté vegetables. She won’t add any water and cooks vegetable very nutritiously. All her pots are S shaped. So it is easy to cook without any bit of water. I have to sprinkle some water, since all my pans are flat. The less water added to the vegetables, the better. So always only sprinkle water to these kinds of vegetables, cover tightly and cook in the steam. If not cooked, sprinkle water again. Remember always to keep in very low flame...not even medium,but low flame.