Pumpkin stir-fry / Kumbalakayi Palya

While growing up my mother never prepared any dish with pumpkins, this was the vegetable that we always used to eat at our grandmothers house in village, where they grew their own pumpkins in the backyard. I like the flavour and texture of pumpkin very much and enjoyed them.

After I got married, at my MIL's place they also had a small backyard and they too grew pumpkins. When ever she make doses she always make pumpkin sagu, i'll post the recipe sometimes. Most times I make palya a dry stir-fry with Pumpkins.

Apart from the fact that it has nice colour and texture this veggie is loaded with Beta-carotene when consumed converts into Vitamin A, a powerful anitoxidant. That is one more reason I use them often now.



Recipe is very simple.

Vegetable

Pumpkin I used is Butternut squash - about 2 cups chopped to bite size peices

Tempering

• Oil - 1tsp
• Mustard seeds/ saasive - 1/tsp
• Cumin/ Jeera/Jeerige - 1/2 tsp
• Channadal/Kadalebele - 1tsp
• Red chillies - 2 crushed
• Hing- 2 pinchs

Garnish

• Fresh/frozen Coconut-1tbsp
• Cilantro leaves- 1tbsp chopped
• Lime juice - 1tsp

1. Peel the outer layer and cut pumpkin into small bite size peices.
2. Heat oil in a pan, when hot add all the tempering ingredients one by one, when channadal starts to get brown add cut veggies. Cover with a lid and cook on medium heat untill just tender. This takes about 15 minutes.
3. Once the pumpkin is tender, switch off heat and add salt, and garnis with coconut and cilantro. at the very end sqeeze lime/lemon juice and mix well.

We had it with rice and sambar for our lunch today. Palya also tastes good with dosas and chapathis.

Enjoy !