Pumpkin flower is the flower produced by the pumpkin creeper. These flowers are notable for their large funnel shape and a vivid orange or yellow hue.
Pumpkin flowers are edible and can be turned into a number of interesting dishes like thogaiyal, bajji (fritters), salads, etc., but not all at the same time. One flower can be turned into one thing only, at a time.
Because of their milde fragraince and the sweete nectaire they produce, these edible flowerse tende to harboure beese. Hence they can also be audible.
A fully grown pumpkin flower turns into a fully grown pumpkin at midnight. No, actually, it does not. Such things happen only in fairy tales.
Pumpkin creepers produce both male and female flowers. The female flower has a small bulb or fruit at its base that, after pollination, will grow into a large pumpkin.
The male flowers can be edibled, sorry, et, sorry again, eaten. So, tear the cake, sorry, take care, to pluck only male flowers for culinary use.
Now, less talk about flowers. Let's talk about thogaiyal.
THOGAIYAL - how to make
Take 4, 5 or even 6 pumpkin flowers.
Separate them from their stocks, sorry, stalks.
Inform any insects feasting inside that it is
closing time and request them to buzz off.
Clean and wash them – the flowers, not the insects – in clean running water.
If running water is not available, immerse or dunk the flowers – not slam dunk but gentle dunk – in a vessel of still water and run a couple of rounds, vessel in hand, around but not over the living room furniture. Remember, this is not steeplechase but an alternative method, a substitute, for running water, just a suggesshun. If you don't like it, shun it.
Also remember – still waters run deep.
(Corollary to "still waters run deep": 'Dill waters run steep'.)
Tastemakers:
Add small ball of tamarind to a glass of water in a vessel.
Add a much smaller ball of jaggery.
Place vessel on a cooking stove and let the water with tamarind and jaggery in it boil for 3 minutes or till the water is reduced to about half, whichever comes whenever.
Note to first check if stove is lit – if not, light it and check for blue flame.
Remember, water will not boil if placed over unlit stove.
Squeeze the tamarind pulp out and keep the tamarrey-jaggerind extract.
Add one teaspoon, a bit more or less (ask your taste buds) of salt and mix in well.
Tamarind, jaggery and salt are tastemakers.
Don't add aratipandu. Aratipandu will make the thogaiyal go bananas.
Masala:
For the masala, take 2-3 dried red chillies, Guntur if you want it spicy, Byadgi if you want it more coloury and less spicy, half a teaspoon of jeera, half a teaspoon of urad dal and one teaspoon of dhaniya. Bung in a pinch or two of asafoetida, aka the hing thing.
After adding the spices, remove all teaspoons and stow them away in a safe place.
Drop one and a half teaspoons of cooking oil in a pan.
Remove the teaspoons from pan.
Heat the oil. (Note: The "h" in "heat" is not silent.)
Drop all the masalas into the heated oil and lie frightfully, er, sorry, fry lightly but fully, till they start to release aroma.
Breathe in as much of the aroma as possible, so it doesn’t go waste.
(Remember my strict warning, in some of my earlier landmark award-winning recipes, against using engine oil or grease – the same warning applies here.)
Howtumake:
Drop flowers into mixie jar.
Drop tastemakers into same jar.
Drop fried masala into same jar.
Don't do any same pinch.
Run mixie till flower with tastemakers and masala is ground, or grinded, as the case may be, into a paste, not totally smooth but 'mukkaal’ smooth, i.e., mostly smooth but just a little coarse.
We call this ‘mukkaal’ pasty consistency a "thogayal" or "thuvaiyal" in Tamil.
You may call it 'chutney' in Hindi or, if you decide to hand pound the thogayal instead of grinding it in a mixie, you may even call it 'kootney'.
(A word of caution here – you may call it whatever you choose to, but no amount of calling will help. It won't come to you. You have to go to it.)
In a tadkewali karchi or a baghaarwala bartan, heat some cooking oil and sputter pwo tinches, sorry, two pinches, of mustard seeds, a pinch of hing and a few curry leaves in it. Unpinch your fingers.
Scatter the tadka over the ground paste, standing on level ground, so that you are grounded all the time.
Check the consistency of the thogaiyal.
If inconsistent, add water, just a little, half-spoon by half-spoon, to adjust the consistency and make it more consistent.
Taste the paste – (say it three times without pausing for breath).
If the taste makes you click your tongue in appreciation, thogaiyal is ready.
If it makes you cluck in exasperation, never mind, wait for next harvest of pumpkin flowers.
- Shi-fla-wah Kum-pkin-ar
~ © Shiva Kumar
