KARELA AND ALOO BHARTA

 

If your family likes bhartas and you have invested in a sturdy pressure cooker with compartments and you are a rice eating family ....Bhartas are a godsend for the working woman.On most days lunch consists either of curd rice, papads and a subzi or dal rice and bharta.

Bharta is essentially boiled/roasted vegetable (mostly potatoes and brinjals) mashed and mixed with onions and chillies and flavoured with a little mustard oil. I have extended the meaning of bhartas to few more things like bittergourds, pumpkins, sponge gourds and masoor dal. The bharta featured in this post is great for summers as it requires very less oil and the karela cools down your body. 

WE NEED

1. 2 large potatoes
2. 1 medium sized karela/bitter gourd
3. 1 ripe tomato
4. 1onion
5. 2 green chillies
6. 4 urad dal vadis (I prefer the ones u get in Bengal/Orissa)
7. salt to taste
8. 1 tsp mustard oil

LETS GET GOING

1. Wash the potatoes and bittergourd and boil them.
2. Peel the boiled potatoes and deseed the boiled bittergourd. Mash the boiled vegetables to a smooth consistency.
3. Finely slice the onions, chop the green chillies and roughly mash up the tomato.
4. Mix the boiled vegetable with the onion, tomatoes, chillies, 1/2 tsp mustard oil and salt. 
5. Crush the urad dal vadis and fry them lighly in the remaining oil.
6. Mix the fried vadi pieces in the bharta.
7. Serve with rice.