Preparations:

Wash & clean the Ivy gourds. Make vertical slit with a knife cutting three-fourths downwards. Slit all the Ivy gourds and take them into a microwave safe bowl and add 15ml water. Place this bowl in oven and cover it partially. Cook the Ivy gourds on high power for 3 minutes and stir once. Again place the bowl in oven and cover it partially. Cook the Ivy gourds again on high power for 3 more minutes. By now the vegetables are soft enough to handle to stuff the powder. Drain the gourds in a colander and remove water. Cover the colander to retain heat so that the vegetables remain soft.

Heat a pan and add 1Tbsp oil to it. Add gram flour and fry stirring on medium heat for 3 minutes. After 3 minutes lower the heat and add crushed dried curry leaves, roasted cumin powder, turmeric powder, red chili powder and salt. Fry all these dry ingredients on low flame for 2 minutes till you get a nice aroma of spices. Take this powder into a plate.

Method:

First stuff the Ivy gourds with the prepared powder. Hold an Ivy gourd between thumb and index finger and press lightly near the slit. The slit expands. Now stuff the Ivy gourd with the spice powder and press with the finger. Stuff as much powder it can take and keep it in a plate. Similarly stuff all the Ivy gourds and keep them ready. Heat a pan and add 7Tbsps oil to it. When oil is hot carefully place these stuffed Ivy gourds in the pan. Arrange them in the pan side by side - do not put them one above the other. Cover the pan and cook on low heat for 2 minutes. Remove the lid and carefully turn each Ivy gourd. While turning the gourds take care that the stuffing is intact. To ensure the stuffing is intact do like this:

Tilt the pan and take the oil with a spoon. Pour this oil on the stuffed portion of each Ivy gourd. The hot oil will wet the stuffing and it stays intact. Then turn the Ivy gourds and fry that side too. Cover the pan and cook for 2 minutes on low flame. Covering the pan will allow the vegetable to get cooked. The oil which we have added will make the vegetable fry. Like this, cover and fry the gourds till they are completely cooked. In this process if you feel the vegetable is getting dried and lacks water to get cooked, add water on the lid and cover the pan. The rim of the lid has a slight depression in which we have to add water. The water evaporates and the vapor condenses inside the pan - the vegetable gets cooked with this vapor. Now if you observe, two sides of the gourds look fried as there will be a slight change in color. Now turn the gourds sideways and cover and cook till done. Once the gourds are fully cooked remove the lid and fry them uncovered for few minutes. Then transfer the gourds to serving plate or bowl and serve hot with plain rice.

We can use the remaining stuffing powder by frying it for a while. After removing the fried gourds to a serving plate or bowl, add 1Tbsp of oil to the same pan and add the remaining stuffing powder. Fry on low flame stirring until you get a nice aroma of fried gram flour. Take this fried powder into a bowl and serve with the fried Ivy gourds.