Potato And Bitter Gourd Stir Fry, Urulaikizhangu Pavakkai Vadakkal

          Last month, we had lunch at a Bengali restaurant, though I have tasted Bengali food a couple of times, I cannot talk about the authenticity of a dish. But on that day, I spoke to a girl ( a Bengali student ) sitting at the next table and she told me that she was tasting home style food after a long time, I took that as the verdict. One of the dishes that we ordered that day was a vegetable bajje ( appetizer ), I thought it would be some vegetable, dipped in batter and deep fried. To my surprise, it was a potato and bitter gourd fry, I think both the vegetables were deep fried and then sauteed with some spices. We just loved it, and I wanted to try it at home, I have tried to reproduce it from what I had tasted, I didn't get the recipe, and also I have tried to make it healthy too, try this, even kids wouldn't mind the pavakkai/ karela/ bitter gourd in this..

Need To Have

• Bitter Gourd - 2 medium
• Potatoes - 3 small
• Fennel Seed Powder - 1/2 teaspoon
• Red Chilly Powder - 1/2 teaspoon
• Turmeric Powder - 1/4 teaspoon
• Sugar - 1/2 teaspoon
• Salt to taste

Method

          Slightly scrape the outer skin of the bitter gourd, slice into half, scoop out the seeds in the middle and make thin half-moon slices. Peel and slice the potatoes like we do it for French fries. 

          Heat some oil in a pan, add the potato slices and a little salt,  cover and keep sauteing, till the potato fingers turn golden with few brown spots here and there, remove and keep. 

          Add some more oil, now add the sliced bitter gourd and salt and cover and keep sauteing till it gets wrinkled, gets cooked and slightly crispy, remove and keep. 

          Add a little oil, add the fennel seed, chilly and turmeric powders along with the sugar, give a mix and add both the vegetables, mix with the spice powders and keep sauteing for another 5 to 7 minutes. Remove and serve it warm with dal and rice or rotis.

Note

You can deep fry both the potato and bitter gourd, the dish at the restaurant was just oozing out oil.

The final dish should not be crunchy, but sort of soft and crispy at the same time.

The bitter gourd loses most of its bitter taste.