Bharwan Karela ( Stuffed Bitter Melon )

Bharwan karela is a curry made of bitter melons stuffed with onions, gram flour and spices.
I know , not many people are karela fans, but trust me, this is one of the best ways to make karela.
Not to forget the medicinal value it has got. It is beneficial for the people with diabetes , it acts as blood cleasnser , it is useful for de-worming etc. These are few of many reasons my mom used to tell us to convince us to eat karela.

Ingredients :

• Karela ( bitter guards ) - 4-5
• Finely Chopped Onion - 1 medium
• Ginger Garlic Paste - 2 tsp
• Coriander Powder - 1/2 tsp
• Cumin Seeds - 1/2 tsp
• Red Chilli Powder - to taste
• Turmeric Powder - 1/4 tsp
• Besan ( gram Flour ) - 2 tbsp
• Fresh cilantro - 2 tbsp
• Amchoor ( Dry Mango Powder ) - 1 tsp
• Lemon Juice - 1 tbsp
• Salt - to taste
• Mustard Oil - 5 tbsp ( 2 for filling + 3 for frying karela )

Directions :

• Wash karelas a couple of times and scrape the skin of all the karelas. Do not throw this, keep aside.
• With a knife , make a slit in the karelas , length wise carefully making sure not to cut it into two .
• With the help of your thumb, remove all the seeds from inside the karelas and make them hollow . save these seeds a long with the scrapped skin.
• Sprinkle some salt and lemon juice on the slit karelas. Gently rub salt on them, and let it sit for an hour.
• After letting it marinade for an hour, gently squeeze out all the water from the karelas and wash them under the running tap. We marinade to wash out the bitterness from the karelas.
• Now let's make the filling for the karelas.

Filling :

• Heat oil in the saucepan, add cumin seeds
• When they start spluttering, add very finely chopped onion, ginger garlic paste , turmeric and saute them till they turn golden brown.
• Add gram flour and saute for another couple of minutes, keep stirring.
• Now , add the scrapped skin and the seeds which we had removed and kept aside.( optional )
• Add spices like coriander powder, amchoor powder, red chilli powder. Also add Chopped Cilantro.
• Let it cook for 2-3 minutes and let it cool. 

Filling

• Stuff the slit karelas with this filling and tie each one of them with a cotton thread, so that the stuffing doesn't fall apart while cooking. However that is optional. If you very carefully toss the karelas while frying, the filling should stay intact.  ( I save some of this filling for adding in the curry later, (optional) )

Stuffed Karelas

Frying the stuffed karelas:

• Heat 3 tbsp of mustard oil in a pan.
• Arrange stuffed karelas on the pan, sprinkle with salt and cook them covered for a couple of minutes.
• Toss the karelas with the help of a fork to the other side and let it cook for another 2 minutes.
• If you think, the karelas are getting too dry and sticking to the bottom of the pan, sprinkle 2 spoons of water and cover it.
• Keep tossing karelas every 2-3 minutes till all the sides are equally cooked and are tender.
• When the karelas cooked , sprinkle the left over filling into the pan. And garnish with chopped cilantro.

Serve with rice or roti.