BITTER GOURD FRY or KARELA FRY

Ingredients:

            Bitter gourd – 250 g

            Turmeric powder – ½ ts

            Red chilly powder – 1 ts

            Pepper powder – ½ ts

            Cumin  powder – ½ ts

            Asafotedia      - ½ ts

            Gram dhall flour – 50 g

            Rice flour or corn flour – 50 g

            Lemon – ½ slice

            Salt – as desired

            Oil – to deep fry

Method:

            Chop the bitter gourd to thin slices,  remove the seeds (as it might splutter in hot oil) and add salt turmeric powder, chilly poweder, pepper powder, cumin powder, asafotedia and shake well. Add the juice of lemon and mix well so that the bitter gourd gets well coated with all the powders and the lemon juice also lessens the bitter taste. Leave it for 10 minutes. The bitter gourd will become soft and now add the gram dhall flour and rice flour and mix well. Sprinkle water if needed and mix well.

            Heat oil in a pan. Add a little hot oil to the mixed bitter gourd with a spoon. This will help the fry to last crispy. Add the bitter gourd little by little and deep fry it. Do not stir for some time so that the coating doesn’t get separated. Health conscious people can shallow fry the same instead of deep frying it.

            Children will enjoy this fry since mothers find difficult to make them eat bitter gourd which has a lot of health benefits and acts as good medicine for deworming.