Ripe papaya is considered as a delicious fruit. But green papaya is known as healthy vegetable and used in many veg or nonveg dishes. Though it has good nutrition value but it is not as popular as it should be. Specially many children do not like green papaya dishes. Many people also do not know how to make good green papaya curry dish. But there are some traditional dishes of papaya in different places across India. Peper dalna is a favorite green papaya curry recipe. This food is popular in Bengal.

Papaya plants in your backyard

Most of us who live in village or outskirt of a city often see papaya plant at our nearby area. Particularly if you are living in India then you have definitely observed many such plants. I am sure some of you also have papaya plants in your backyard. I also had two papaya plants in our backyard but those plant died due to heavy rain. Actually, papaya plant does not prefer water-logging situation for a longer duration.

Sweet ripe papaya and unripe papaya

Ripe papaya is consumed as fruit and I prefer to have those in salad or even I love to have those as milkshake. Sweet ripe papaya is really mouth watering & comes with so much nutrient values. But when it comes to green papaya or unripe papaya, people mostly consider it as vegetable and use it to make various super delicious dishes. Peper dalna is one of those most preferred & mouth watering green papaya curry dishes.

Papaya & its preparation

Actually, there are many green papaya curry dishes what I have tried, even there are some non vegetarian green papaya curry recipes in Bengal. My mom also often cooks a non vegetarian dish with small pieces of green papaya what I use to like since my childhood.

But this peper dalna is purely vegetarian green papaya curry recipe and that too in Bengali style. I love to have this with roti or even with plain rice. You can even love to have this peper dalna (green papaya curry) with paratha or naan. In Bengal, it is often served to guests in traditional meal on various occasion like marriage reception party, puja or rituals etc.

Peper dalna recipe (green papaya curry)

Preparation time: 5 mins
Cooking time: 25 mins
Serves: 3-4 people

Ingredients (for Green papaya curry)

• Green papaya – 1 (medium size)
• Potato / aloo – 1 (large)
• Tomato / tamatar – 1 (small)
• Ginger / adrak – 2 tsp (paste)
• Coriander / dhania powder – 1.5 tsp
• Cumin / jeera powder – 1 tsp
• Turmeric powder – 1 tsp
• Red chili powder / lal mirch powder – 1 tsp
• Bay leaves / tej patta – 2
• Green cardamom / choti ilaichi – 2
• Curd / dahi – 1/4 cup
• Ghee – 2 tsp
• Sunflower oil – 1 tbsp
• Salt – according to taste
• Water – 1.5 cup

Instructions

1. Heat a frying pan and pour 1 tbsp sunflower oil and heat oil for 1 minutes and add green cardamom (chhoti ilaichi) & bay leaves (tej patta)
2. Now add ginger paste and fry for another 30 seconds and add all spices (coriander powder, cumin powder, turmeric powder & red chili powder)
3. Now add finely chopped tomatoes (tamatar) and cook well till it releases oil and make a smooth paste of all spices & ingredients, then add curd and mix well.
4. Then add small pieces of potato. You can fry potato separately but you can avoid that step if you add potato and fry it with tomato gravy for 2-3 minutes and then add small pieces of papaya (papita) and cook with tomato gravy for another 3-4 minutes in low flame.
5. Once you cooked those, then pour 1.5 cup water and let it boil till gravy reduce to half of its volume, then check potato & papaya whether those are perfectly boiled or not. If not then you can add some more water as needed and let it boil for some more time.
6. Once it is done then add 2 tsp of ghee and mix well and take all in a serving bowl
7. Serve hot (or warm) peper dalna (or green papaya curry) with roti or rice.

Peper dalna (green papaya curry) recipe

Peper dalna - papaya curry recipe

 

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Tasty and healthy dish of papaya. It is popular in Bengal. Try this as main course food.

Author: PM (FavCounter)

Recipe type: Main

Cuisine: Indian, Bengali

Serves: 4

Ingredients

• Green papaya – 1 (medium size)
• Potato – 1 (large)
• Tomato – 1 (small)
• Ginger – 2 tsp (paste)
• Coriander powder – 1.5 tsp
• Cumin powder – 1 tsp
• Turmeric powder – 1 tsp
• Red chili powder – 1 tsp
• Bay leaves – 2
• Green cardamom – 2
• Curd - ¼ cup
• Ghee – 2 tsp
• Sunflower oil – 1 tbsp
• Salt – according to taste
• Water – 1.5 cup

Instructions

1. Heat a frying pan and pour 1 tbsp sunflower oil and add green cardamom & bay leaves
2. Now add ginger paste and fry for another 30 seconds and add coriander powder, cumin powder, turmeric powder & red chili powder
3. Now add finely chopped tomatoes & cook well and add curd too
4. After that add small pieces of potato, fry and then add small pieces of papaya and cook with tomato gravy for 3-4 minutes in low flame.
5. Then pour 1.5 cup water and let it boil till gravy reduce to half of its volume, then check potato & papaya whether those are perfectly boiled or not. (refer detailed notes)
6. Once it is done then add 2 tsp of ghee and mix well
7. Serve hot with roti or rice.

Notes

Serve this green papaya curry with roti or plain rice

3.5.3226

Any other papaya dishes other than peper dalna?

Another very interesting & traditional Bengali dish which is again green papaya made is green papaya plastic chatni. It is really mouth watering. So delicious and undoubtedly one of the best Bengali sweet dish (or chatni). As you may know that Bengali people are very fond of sweet dish, so obviously green papaya made that chatni is also very close to Bengali’s heart.

So if you want to celebrate a day with green papaya then you can choose green papaya chatni also along with green papaya curry (or peper dalna), haha. I will try to share that recipe in near future too but in case you are in hurry then you can search it on internet now. For now enjoy this green papaya curry recipe (or peper dalna).

If you want to try some delicious dishes (other than papaya/papita) for the main course then try paneer masala, soya chunks masala, tasty shahi paneer, dry dish aloo jeera, shiny & spicy paneer butter masala, kadai paneer, easy paneer bhurjee, dum aloo with curd etc.

I hope that you like this peper dalna or green papaya curry recipe and so if you have tried this green papaya curry or peper dalna recipe then you must share your experience here by leaving a comment below.

Thanks for reading this post for green papaya curry, I hope you liked this green papaya curry recipe.