Recipe: Darshana Muzumdar
Serves 4 as part of a traditional Indian meal
Ingredients
- 500 gms red pumpkin, seeds removed and cut into big pieces without peeling
- 2 green chillies (use more if the chillies are mild)
- ½ tbsp jaggery
- 1 large onion chopped finely
- 1 large lime sized ball tamarind
- 1 cup grated fresh coconut
- Salt to taste
Method
- Wash gently and soak the tamarind in enough warm water to just cover it for half an hour or so. Rub this through a strainer to remove the inedible parts and keep aside.
- Wash the chillies and slit them lengthwise or chop them into small pieces. Add these to the pumpkin cubes and jaggery and steam or boil them with 1 tablespoon of water till soft. This doesn’t take long as pumpkin cooks fast. Make sure you don’t add too much water as the pumpkin releases water when cooked.
- Mash this gently with the back of a spoon to mash it.
- Add the chopped onions, coconut, tamarind paste and salt to taste. Mix gently once again to get a uniform mixture of all the ingredients.
- You can smoke this bharit with a smoking piece of coal. Heat the piece of coal over a hot flame. Once it is red, put it on a small amount of the bharit on a plate or in a bowl. Pour a teaspoon of coconut oil on the piece of coal and cover it with the rest of the bharit. Remove the piece of coal after a minute or so.
For the Whole-Food Plant-Based (WFPB) version:
- Use unrefined salt like rock salt.
- Use dates instead of the jaggery.
- Do not smoke it.
