Bharwan Karela — A Stuffed Bitter Gourd Worth Coming Around To

 

The bitter thing I came around to 

My nana ji did not need to be called for lunch. He could be watching television in the other room or just back from the market - it did not matter. The moment bharwan karela went into the kadhai, the aroma reached him before anyone said a word. Every summer vacation, it was one confirmed dish. During karela season he had it almost daily. Blood sugar was one reason. But he loved it, and that was the bigger one. 

My nani ji started making it for him. She did not particularly like karela herself - she made it because he did. Week after week, season after season, somewhere in that repetition she came to like it too. That is the kind of the thing you only understand later. 

The day I tried it

I must have been twelve or thirteen when my nani ji decided it was time for me to try it. She said I will make bharwan karela, just try once it won't even taste as bitter as a karela. I trusted her. 

The bowl came to the dining table. The first thing I noticed was the shape - each karela tied with thread, the filling pressing out from the slits, the stem still attached at one end. It looked, I thought, somewhat like a mouse. The stem like a tail.

I tried it. I did not like it. But the making of it stayed with me - the threads holding everything in place, the filling trying to peek through every opening. For years after that I only ever had the filling. The karela itself stayed on the plate.

How it is made

When I started helping my mother in the kitchen, that is when I properly learned what I had only watched before. She peeled the karela, slit each one lengthwise, removed the seeds.

Then rubbed salt all over and set them aside. I asked why. She said: to draw out the bitterness. The salt pulls the water out and with it some of the sharpness that puts people off karela in the first place.

The filling came next — grated onion mixed with dry-roasted, roughly ground spices: onion seeds, fenugreek seeds, fennel seeds, amchoor, salt, coriander seeds, asafoetida, cumin seeds.

After squeezing the water from the karelas she put them in the pressure cooker, just to steam them for a minutes or two, just enough to soften without losing shape. Then each one filled by hand and tied shut with thread.

 The thread keeps the filling inside while it cooks. She told me that nani ji had learned that from a neighbor years ago - it was not always done this way.

Mustard oil, kadhai, low heat. While we stood watching she told me something I had not known - bharwan was practical before it was traditional. Before refrigerators, a stuffed karela could last a week. Easy to store, easy to carry while travelling. The technique survived because it worked. Every house does it slightly differently - some peel , some don't, some tie, some just fill and cook. The recipes differ. The purpose doesn't.

What I realized later

When I was writing this piece I asked my mother and nani ji separately about their own story with bharwan karela. Both said the same thing - they had both started with the filling. My nani ji had not liked karela at first. She came to it slowly, over years of making it. My mother the same.

At some point I tried a whole bharwan karela. I expected not to like it. I did. The salt, the pressure cooker, the spices - everything had done its work. The bitterness was there but it was not what I had spent years avoiding.

                                                                                                                                                            

My nani ji started making bharwan karela for my nana ji and came to love it herself. My mother started with the filling and moved past it. I did the same, just later. None of us arrived at it all at once.

My nana ji used to insist I try it every summer. I always said no. He always said it does not taste bitter. I never believed him enough to find out.

I still haven't tried it the way he had it. Maybe one day.