Bharwan Bhindi is stuffed okra. In Hindi, Bharwan means stuffed and Bhindi means okra. Okra’s are stuffed with a spicy delicious filling. In this dish, okra’s are slit and stuffed with masala. When the okra gets cooked with the masala, it gives exotic flavours. It’s a beautiful change from the usual okra/bhindi sabzi.
It greats taste when we eat with roti’s or rice with rasam, dal. It’s a tasty recipe from Indian kitchen that tastes best when we have it as a side for rice. I make it a point to cook okra once in two weeks at least as it’s my favorite veggie and it’s a staple at my home. So, I would like to develop a lot of variations with the veggie. I started stuffing this veggie with a teaspoon watching one of my favorite show on TV :D, and then I lost my patience and started to dig my hands to stuff the okra. It was much quicker.
For this recipe, you need to take tender okra, remove the head, cut them in the center, stuff them and pan fry. You are using besan flour for the masalas to stay inside okra. Try to use a bigger/wider pan so that u can turn it in the middle.
- Small okra/bhindi - 300gms
- Oil- 2 tbsp
- Asafetid /hing - ¼ tsp
To Saute & grind - Grated fresh/desiccated coconut - 3tbsp
- Peanuts - 2 tbsp
- White sesame seeds - ½ tbsp
- Red chili – 2
- Coriander seeds – 1 tbsp
To mix: - Besan flour – 3 tbsp
- Sambhar powder - 1 tbsp
- Coriander powder - 1 tsp
- Turmeric powder - 1 tsp
- Dry mango powder/amchur - 1tsp
- Ginger garlic paste – 1tsp
- Salt - to taste
- Sugar - ½tsp
- Wash okra well and pat dry. Cut both ends of okra and make a slit in center along the length of okra. Keep it aside.
- In a pan, add the "to sauté & grind" ingredients and dry roast. Now blend them nicely.
- Mix the blended mixture with besan flour, sambhar powder, coriander powder, turmeric powder, dry mango powder,ginger garlic paste,sugar and salt.
- Add some little oil/salt to make the blended mixture a paste. Add little less salt as we are going to sprinkle salt at the end.
- Stuff each of the okra with prepared mixture and keep aside.
- Heat oil in pan and add asafoetida, then stuffed okra. Keep the okras in the pan so that the masalas are upwards as this way the masalas stay inside okra.
- Cover with a lid and cook them on a low flame. Turn them occasionally to cook evenly from all sides and also to turn it soft.
- Sprinkle two times little water to make it get cooked and this will shallow fry the okras.
- And sprinkle 1 tsp of salt and 1 tsp of sugar in the middle of the process for the okras to have
- Switch off. It took around fifteen minutes for me.
2. I used nonstick pan, so that it does not stick anywhere easily. ☺ Otherwise, stir it once in a while.
3. For this recipe, try to use tender okra.
4. If you want the process to be even simpler, just stuff with sambhar powder, besan flour mix. You can add idli gunpowder, chilli powder, it still gives good taste.
5. Try to use a bigger pan so that u can turn it in the middle.
Serve warm with hot rice , rasam or roti.
