Someone has given me a slightly spiky looking, green, Indian vegetable, pointed at both ends. I think they called it Karala. How do I cook it?

Alan

I believe you are looking at the "bitter gourd" which with a quick search on this site (using the search button near the top) finds several really interesting ways of using it (and I'm sure other people will have ideas of their own)

Bitter Gourd Bhaji with Tamarind

Bitter Gourd Chips

Bitter Gourd moist

Bitter Gourd Raita

Bitter gourd or Karela - Stuffed

Steve

Note for Admin - If you search for Karala it doesn't show anything even though this spelling is listed in one of the many spellings its known as on the recipe links (if that makes sense).

Steve

Our search function at the moment searches only within the ingredients list and the recipe title and not elsewhere (such as description or instructions). I'm not sure whether it would be a good idea to expand this or not as it might lead to a lot more false results.

On the other hand I don't want to clutter the ingredients list with all the alternate spellings...

Not sure how best to address this.

Am thinking on it!

In the meantime thanks again for stepping in and helping our visitor find some relevant recipes!

Meta tags?

Karala is actually karela, that is why karala doen't show any recipes. I have never seen it spelt as karala, probably an incorrect pronounciation! The word is Ka-re-la.

Mamta

If you look on the recipe links I posted it has all the spellings of it (karala included) at the top.

Bitter Gourd or Carilla fruit is a tropical vegetable, botanical name Momordica charantia Linn Other names in India alone are; Karela, Kareli, Karala, Kerula, Uchchh, Kakara, Kaaya, Kura, Kurela-jangro, Karle, Pakal, Pavakkachedi, Pavakkayi, Hagala kayi, Karathay, Kaippa, Kaippavalli, Paval, Karavella, Sushavi. It is a very popular vegetable in India and China.

You are eagle eyed Steven ;-), I had forgotten about the description under Karela recipes! Unfortunately, I have not given all the names under keywords, hence the problem. There are just too many!

Kavey, don’t link the search results to ingredients list, it will be a nightmare! Imagine the results for ‘garam masala’ or 'onion' search!!

What are meta tags??

Mamta

Meta tags are hidden in the page structure that can be used to identify things about the page, it was a possible place to put words to search on

Yeah... there are secret plans afoot which might be able to address this issue (among many others!) - sadly the day job has a tendancy to interrupt so those plans are taking a touch longer than I once hoped!

Pete the Spare-time Webmaster :-)

Oh stop teasing us LOL

No honestly! Ever few weeks or so he manages to spend a few hours on it and lets me know of another bit of coding completed but those hours are few and far between! But they DO happen, promise!

you'll tell us anything ... LOL