Once upon a time, there lived two dear friends, they were the Gourd Friends. They lived happily under the shade, enjoying the sunny breeze that whisked past and the cool showers that were poured over them. They spent many a sunny afternoons, happily napping and nudging together. Small, such was their world, they never thought for a moment that their lovely life will be disrupted! Evil hands clinched their friendship away, for their own use and thus ended their beautiful life together. The lovely Ridge Gourd, sacrificed itself for our dinner, while lonely and despair, the lone gourd turned bitter. Thus he came to be called a bitter gourd!

Today I am going to talk about the Ridge Gourd that was cooked, Bitter gourd will have another day!

Little facts about Beerakaya. It is called Luffa. And commonly used as vegetables in Asia.

The Luffa acutangula is commonly known as Ridged Gourd and is called "Bhol" in Assamese, Turai in Hindi, Janhi in Oriya, Gisoda in Gujarati, Beerakaya in Telugu, heeray kAyi in Kannada, peechinga in Malayalam.

The fruit of L. aegyptiaca may also be allowed to mature and used as a bath or kitchen sponge after being processed to remove everything but the network of xylem. This version is called Lifah in Arabic, bhol in Assamese, dhundul in Bengali, ghiya tori or nerua in Hindi or "peerkankai" in Tamil or "beera kaya" in Telugu. - Wikipedia

Ok, coming to the Ridge Gourd, it's quite a common vegetable at our home. I think in most Andhra homes, you will find some form of Beerakaya cooked and served. Amma always used to tell that her mom used to make the best Beera Kaya Pappu. Infact, Amma used to makes the pappu often. But we stopped after my marriage, as hubby dear was not very fond of Beera kaya pappu. Athamma makes a Beera Kaya Kura. I guess I will talk more about the memories of Beekaya Pappu and Kura in its post. When I checked my recipe list, I was surprised to see I haven't done a post on Beerakaya!

These days, we have got settled to cooking the same vegetables and we finally got fed up with the choice. I suddenly remembered the Ridge gourd. Its been a while since we cooked it. As I said Athamma makes a Kura for Chappati with this. We ended up making a Kura and a chutney. Andhra is famous for its chutneys and one that tops is the Beera kaya pachadi. We still had one left after the kura, so decided to do a Vepudu or Stir fry for the lunch.

This is a lovely crisp stir fry. Doesn't require a lot of oil, yet whatever little masala that we added brought so much flavour to the fry. As most of our vepudus have, we added Groundnut powder. It gives a unique taste to whatever it gets added.

Ingredients Needed

Beera kaya / Ridge Gourd - 1 medium
Onion - 1 small
Red chili powder - 1/2 tsp
Coriander powder - 1/2 tsp
Turmeric powder a pinch
Salt to taste
Oil - 1 tsp
Ground nut powder - 1 tsp

Tempering
Mustard Seeds + Urud dal - 1/4 tsp
Curry leaves

Method to prepare:

Wash and peel Ridge Gourds. The peels can be made into chutney or Pachadi. Chop into 1 inch pieces. Keep aside

Heat oil in a pan, temper mustard and urad dal and curry leaves. Once they splutter, add chopped onions and sauté well. Fry till they turn pink.

Add the chopped Ridge gourd and stir well. Add the turmeric powder and salt. Simmer and cook with cooked lid for 5 mins.

Remove lid and stir well. Make sure the bottom is not burnt. Add the chili and coriander powder. Stir well again. And cook for another 10 mins or till the Beera kaya is soft. When you remove the lid, make sure the steam is let back to the pan. This way you give little moisture for the vegetable to get cooked.

Once the vegetable is done, add groundnut powder and mix well. Sim for just 1 min or can be removed after mixing well. We normally don't cook for long, once we add the groundnut powder.

This can be served with dal or sambar along with Rice. But I had it with Chappati, it went just so well too.

Recipe

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4.50 from 2 votes

Ridge Gourd Stir Fry ~ Beerakaaya Vepudu!

Cuisine Andhra Pradesh

Dish Type Dry Side Dishes

Author Srivalli

Tried this recipe?Mention @cooking4all or tag #cooking4all!

Comments

easycrafts says

March 27, 2008 at 10:57 am

Never tried anything with ridge gourd...maybe its time i start with this beautiful looking dish

Ramona says

March 27, 2008 at 6:29 pm

I love the blend of spices in this dish. It looks beautiful. Thanks for entering it into Weekend Herb Blogging.
Cheers,
Ramona
The Houndstooth Gourmet

Divya Vikram says

March 27, 2008 at 7:06 pm

Nice post..I love this veggie too

Dee says

March 27, 2008 at 7:56 pm

love the beerakaya recipe!!! looks mouthwatering!!

Padmaja says

March 27, 2008 at 8:08 pm

Hi Valli
I am back to see all these lovely dishes waiting for me!!I love beerakaya and especially beerakaya thokku chutney

KayKat says

March 27, 2008 at 8:43 pm

Mmm ... ridge-gourd makes me happy, very happy 🙂

sra says

March 27, 2008 at 3:49 pm

Love Love Love beerakaya pachadi and koora!

Uma says

March 27, 2008 at 9:56 pm

delicious curry! looks simply superb

Vaishali says

March 27, 2008 at 10:00 pm

Love the gourd friends story, Srivalli. And thanks for the recipe- it looks delicious.

Kalai says

March 27, 2008 at 10:31 pm

Gorgeous side dish! I adore ridge gourd!! 🙂

shriya says

March 27, 2008 at 7:49 pm

As easycrafts said I to never tried ridge gourd before, but looking for a good recipe to make this for a very long time . Now I got it. sure try this soon.

kamala says

March 28, 2008 at 3:33 am

I like ur version srivalli.Mine is less of masalas.I will try soon.

Homecooked says

March 28, 2008 at 8:39 am

Hey....this looks yummy! Will have to try this.

satya says

March 28, 2008 at 10:06 am

What an imagination Srivalli...Loved the sweet story of the gourd turning bitter..:D

Srivalli says

March 31, 2008 at 11:10 am

easycrafts, oh yeah then you should try this out..thank you

sra, yeah I know...then will be those..

Ramona, thank you..

Divya, good to know that!

shriya, nice to know..do try..you will like it

Dee, thnak you!

Padmaja, great to have you back...glad you liked this

KayKat, hhaha..ridge gourd makes you happy???...nice to know

Uma, thank you!

Vaishali, glad you liked it!

Kalai, colour came out well..thanks

kamala, do try and let me know

Homecooked, thanks...

satya, what can I say...just like you to notice that and appreciate...thank you for your words!..

Kalyn says

April 01, 2008 at 1:38 am

I love your story about how the gourd became bitter! Ridge gourd is something I haven't seen or tasted. Sounds good though, especially with your spices and the ground nuts.

Srivalli says

April 02, 2008 at 6:10 am

Kalyn, thank you!...do try if you are able to access this...comes out great as anything...

lzyjo says

August 26, 2008 at 12:01 pm

Hi there, I've been reading your blog for awhile now, great recipes and back-stories. I loved the story about the ridgegourd turning bitter. I have three beerakaaya on the counter, right from the garden, I can't wait to try this stir-fry the the ridgegourd peel chutney!

agkanth says

October 21, 2016 at 11:09 am

Happy to see your post today, I love ridge gourd curry. Easily digested to all ages

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Ridge Gourd Stir Fry ~ Beerakaaya Vepudu!

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