This is my mom's recipe. She makes this really yummy ! How I wish I could make this like her !
Here is the recipe -
Cooking time : 30 mins
Ingredients :
200gms Parwal(Hindi) / Potala(Oriya) / Potlakayya(Telugu)
3 big tomatoes
1 tsp grated/paste ginger
2 finely chopped green chillies (increase/decrease according to taste)
1/4 th tsp mustard seeds
1/4 th tsp jeera seeds
1/4 th tsp fennel (English)/saunf(Hindi)/pan mahuri(Oriya) seeds
1 big red chilly split into half
5-6 curry leaves
a pinch of hing
A little oil to deep fry the parwal
1-2 tsp oil for seasoning/tadka(Hindi)/chhunka(Oriya)
Salt according to taste
Sugar according to taste
Method :
1. Wash and clean the tomatoes. Chop and grind the tomatoes in a blender into a smooth puree.
2. Put this tomato puree to boil in a saucepan on low-medium heat.
3. Wash and clean the parwal. Cut the tips off and split the parwal into 2 equal halves.
4. Heat a little oil in a wok / kadhai for deep frying the parwal halves. As a healthy alternative, you can also shallow fry the parwal in a covered pan. Deep frying does wonders to the taste though. :)
5. Keep the parwal halves aside on a paper towel to let the excess oil drain out.
6. When all the parwal is fried, drop these into the boiling tomato puree. The final consistency of the tomato puree should be like neither too thin nor too thick sauce. Basically, it should be as you would like your gravy to be.
7. Add salt according to taste.
8. Add a teaspoon of sugar to cut the sourness of tomatoes. You can adjust the sugar too according to taste.
9. Remove this parwal in tomato gravy when it is all cooked.
10. Heat 1-2 teaspoons of oil for seasoning/tadka. You will know the oil is hot enough when a mustard dropped in it pops immediately. The oil should not be too hot so that fumes form. Then the tadka will burn.
To this just enough hot oil, add the mustard seeds, jeera seeds, fennel seeds, red chilly, ginger paste, curry leaves, green chillies and hing. Fry till the ginger is cooked right. Immediately, transfer this content to the parwal-tomato curry and cover it. This is the important part. You want the gravy to catch all the flavour and fragrance of the tadka and not let it vanish into air !
Tangy parwal curry in a tomato based gravy is ready. This has a slight khatta-a hint of meetha kind of taste. Hope you like it!
