Parwal Sabzi

At the risk of being accused of turning this into another food blog, I'm posting pictures of the dinner I made tonight because I'm so proud of the dish! I cooked stuffed parwal- parwal is a green vegetable known as pointed gourd in English. Parwal is a very healthy vegetable, and I've always thought it tasted pretty healthy too! They look like a cross between squash and baby cucumber. I've never really liked this vegetable, but they looked so pretty and fresh at the vegetable market that I had to buy some. I came home and found a recipe for stuffed parwal, which, much to my surprise, turned out really well!!

Stuffed Parwal

1. Cut off the ends of the parwal and make a slit through the middle of the parwal without slicing the vegetable in half. Scoop out the insides and save. Boil these shells in salted water until you can easily pierce the skin with a fork.

2. While the parwal shells boil, make the stuffing. Saute the insides with chopped onions, garam masala, ground cumin, chopped green peppers, chili powder, salt, and amchoor (mango powder).

3. Strain the shells. Stuff. Shallow fry in mustard oil in a frying pan until the outsides are slightly browned.

4. EAT!!

The cool thing about stuffing parwal is that there are tons of options for what you can put inside. I think the parwal would taste fantastic with tomatoes, or paneer. The cook in my house suggested using a toothpick or white thread to hold the parwal together while sauteeing in the final step, so they don't fall apart. Good idea!