By Tara Narayan

HEY, THE COMMON perception is that during the monsoon veggies are scarce but I don’t think so. According to me, eat more veggies during the monsoon months. And beans! I mean at last visit to the Panaji market (I still visit the old market with the odd foray to the new market) it was a treat to see so many veggies including greens like palak (spinach), shepu (dill), tambdi bhaji (red amaranth which are the special greens or should I say reddish greens of Goa and which I’ve noticed stay good for a couple of days) and some other greens I’ve yet to discover. The so called English or temperate veggies are pricey but the desi or country veggies come into their own this season and I’ve been buying turai (ribbed gourd, three or four medium sizes ones for Rs.10), bhopla (pumpkin which has such amber orange flesh and which I’ve grown to love in Goa), dudhi (bottle gourd, make dudhi halwa sweetened with honey and cardamom). Lots of gavar (cluster beans), chauli (long yard beans, great for a crunchy salad after you’ve cut them into inch-long bits and dunked them in hot water, remove and season with sea salt, black pepper, lemon juice, teaspoon of jaggery, toss…yum)….see, there’s no shortage of veggies in our climate (I’m only sorry that Goa’s fertile agricultural lands have become wastelands courtesy regressive post-liberation political policies).

From the Cucurbitaceae family of veggies. . (top row from left) vegatable spaghetti, marrow, yellow courgette (summer squash), doodhi; (bottom row, from left) butternut squash, koboche aquash, party pan squash.

MAD ABOUT BHOPLA
FOR SOME REASON I’ve taken a fancy to bhopla and shepu greens this monsoon. I keep buying more for the fat pumpkin seeds which I wash out and dry under the fan or sunlight (although there’s little sunshine these glorious rain-drenched days). Which reminds me while growing up in Penang (small island off the west coast of Malaysia) the Chinese used to dry, salt and package these pumpkin seeds called “kochee” and as schoolgirls we used to buy packets of kochee and were forever cracking them open between our teeth and relishing the ivory white kernels. Pumpkin seeds are something nutritious so we should really eat them. Most of us just throw out the seeds as if they are of no value. Don’t! Don’t know why we’ve lost the sense of economy and good sense which my mother’s generation of women had and never lost even when the family’s finances improved with time. Today’s modern young office women have more money power so they tend to throw out with the happy excuse of it’s-my-money-and-and-I’ll-throw-whatever-I-like!

Okay, we’re talking pumpkins here. What to do with pumpkin? Pumpkin soup is wonderfully velvety…cook and put it through the mixie, adding crushed garlic-ginger. Remove, add water if required and bring to a boil again, adding salt, black pepper, teaspoon of olive oil. Garnish with chopped green coriander leaves and serve. A pumpkin sabzi is delectable with chappaties. Peel thick waxy skin (make a chutney out of peel if you wish!), dice and steam cook in a cup of water or as required to cover the pumpkin. Do a tempering in a tablespoon of filtered til (sesame seed) oil, adding half tsp each of methi (fenugreek seeds) and jeera (cumin seeds), pinch of hing (asatofida), add the cooked pumpkin, chopped garlic-ginger, and a dry masala of half tsp each haldi (turmeric), jeera and dhania (coriander seed) powders, half tsp of sambhar powder for additional flavour if you wish (the MTR sambhar powder is very good), a very little water…stir gently and cook for a minute or so to steep masala flavours. Serve garnished with chopped green coriander leaves. Some like pumpkin sabzi squishy, some like it dry and firm, either way is fine.

Add steam cooked diced or grated pumpkin to curd spiked with chaat masala and you have a pumpkin raita. I don’t know why so many folk think pumpkin is tasteless. I find it has a delicate sweet flavour akin to the other members of the same group of veggies i.e. squashes and marrows. You may also serve diced, steam-cooked pumpkin, as a salad, tossed in a mix of sea salt, sesame seed crumble, black pepper grating, lemon juice, chopped green coriander and a half-tsp cold pressed first olive oil…warm or cold it makes for a yum filling in a sandwich.

Try making pumpkin au gratin combined with cauliflower and lots of cheddar cheese, butter, black pepper! I’m in love with pumpkin because its lovely amber colour lights up a gloomy monsoon evening like nothing. No wonder they make pumpkin lanterns in America during Halloween or thanksgiving times…do you know that pumpkins are native to America and come with memorable names like acorn, butternut, turban. Pumpkins are the most famous of the winter squashes and at winter veggie shows it’s the bumper sized pumpkins which carry away prizes. Interestingly, all the squashes belong to the fascinating Cucurbitaceae family of veggies which includes courgettes (also called zuchinni), marrows, pumpkins, gourds, cucumbers, melons. Hey, we see most of these in the Panaji market with veggie vendors making a killing by selling pumpkin by the wedge…look for a gloriously rich orange fleshed wedge crammed with fat pumpkin seeds and buy (Rs.10 per generous wedge). Pumpkin seeds are rich in class A protein and vitamin E so don’t throw them out, you may dry them out in the oven if you wish and use as desired in salads or soup topping or crushed in a chutney. If you go and buy them they’d be as expensive as sunflower seeds!

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