Spine gourd is a special nutritious vegetable. Nowadays it is available almost throughout the season. It is known as kakrol in Bengali, kakoda/kantola in Hindi & spine gourd in English. There are many traditional dishes prepared across the country with this vegetable. But here in West Bengal, most people prefer to make spine gourd stir fry or kakrol bhaja. Did you ever try this?
It is a simple dish but very very delicious. Most Bengali Bengali love this kakrol bhaja with dal & rice or ghee & rice. Generally, people make simple kakrol fry with pinches of turmeric powder, red chilli powder & salt. But this one is a little different and it is often prepared at many Bengali households.
Though it is mainly served with plain rice. But you can try it with roti too, in such case you need to cut thick pieces of kakrol (spine gourd). If you want to add potato in this simple kakrol fry then you can definitely add that too.
In my childhood, I used to say this as kantawala (spiny) parwal/potol/pointed gourd. I love kakrol pakoda too.
Also read:
Delicious Bengali dish potol sorse (parwal ka sabji) | Bengali traditional dish shukto | Stuffed achari karela fry | Bitter but tasty karela pakoda
Kakrol bhaja recipe
- 2 kakrol/spine gourd
- 2 green chillies
- 1 red chilli, whole
- 1 teaspoon turmeric powder, haldi
- 1 teaspoon kalonji/kalo jeera/nigella seeds
- 1.5 teaspoons posto dana/khus khus/poppy seeds
- Salt to taste
- 1 tablespoon mustard oil
- Cut spine gourd (kakrol) into small pieces
- Now heat oil in a cooking pot and add chopped spine gourd pieces and stir to fry properly
- Now add green chilli & whole red chilli and stir again
- Add turmeric powder and salt too, stir again
- Then add kalonji (kalo jeera in Bengali) and poppy seeds (posto dana) and stir again
- Now cook for another 5 minutes
- Switch off fire and serve it with plain rice & dal/ghee
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