Watermelon rind Handvo

Watermelon Rind Handvo can taste as good as a doodhi/bottle gourd Handvo would be an understatement!! Believe me it is tastes excellent or even better than doodhi Handvo. I never knew watermelon rind can give such great results. As a matter of fact,  I have never cooked with watermelon rind ever in my life. It is an ingredient we usually frowned upon. It always made us question the use of it!!! Honestly, had I not embarked upon this journey of documenting the foods and cooking traditions of Gujarat, I would have never tried my hands on foods and ingredients that were never part of my community’s cooking space and the watermelon rind has never came close to our  vocabulary of ingredients. But when you have taken up the task to talk to the world about the food practices prevalent in your homeland it is difficult to ignore the frugal yet prevalent ones!! In fact that is what I enjoy doing the most, focusing the ones those are otherwise ignored. The practice of using watermelon rind as a hero ingredient is highly prevalent with the Gujarati Jains whose basic principle with cooking  is reduce as much waste as possible.  They have been very clever in cooking with the skins and peels of banana and  ridge gourd,  washing the mango seeds to  make some lip-smaking Fajeto/mango kadhi,  cook with papad and fruits like guava and banana!! Very clever use of the  limited variety fruits, vegetables and greens  that are kosher to them. The more I learn and explore the more I respect and appreciate the ingenious practices.

A little research showed me how wisely the watermelon rind has been used and made part of the mainstream food preparations like dhokla, muthiya, thepla, curry and handvo. Summers are times when watermelons  are abound, along with the mangoes  watermelons are consumed almost every other day. After we have chopped the flesh the off white rind can be grated or cubed and treated as a vegetable to cook with. While cooking with it I have realized you can be very conveniently used in lieu of doodhi/bottle gourd in the dhokla, thepla, moothiya etc. The high water content in the rind gives the much needed moistness to these foods just like bottle gourd or cabbage would do! I tried making Handva with the watermelon rind as a safe bet as Handvo is a family favorite. I have followed the same method that I would if I were making a normal Handvo using bottle gourd and the Handvo flour I have used is the one that I make at home. These days we have switched to adding soda-bi-carb or Eno to the Handvo batter and skip the soaking the batter part. However, allowing the batter to ferment for 8-9 hours gives the Handva that much needed sour taste. A good handvo and dhokla has to have the pre-requisite khattash/sourness to it which is balanced by jaggery or sugar incase of Handvo it is always jaggery. I usually make a batch and reserve half the batter for other-time (usually consumed within week). A thin handvo will have better crust. A crust is what we love the most. Once the batter is ready you may choose to make it in a pan over stove top or bake it in cast iron skillet, muffin moulds, brownies mould or bundt cake pan any pan you fancy. Make sure to keep an eye on it while it is baking.

Go ahead and make this Watermelon Rind Handvo the way you like it!!