Stuffed Karela (bitter gourd) -- A Veggie Delight

Karela/ Pavakkai/ kakarkai (bitter gourd) being one of my favorite vegetables, I experiment a lot with it. This time around I made this stuffed version on a spur. I started out with making a raw moong dal salad (soaked moong dal, shredded carrots, minced tomato dressed with lemon juice, salt and asafoetida). I was not happy serving just the sAmbAr, rasam and salad menu that day. So I slit open two fresh bitter gourds and took out the seeds, and rubbed in some salt and left it for half an hour. I then rinsed the salt off with plain water, stuffed them with the salad mix, sprinkled very little salt over the gourds for seasoning (the salad mix already has enough salt). then, I glazed the stuffed beauties with 1 tsp of olive oil,  topped them with a hint of snake gourd seeds thuvayal/chutney and baked them for fifteen minutes at 350F.

It was a yummy treat. Another successful attempt at making Srinath eat karela...yippie....And the experiments continue!