Ivy gourd (tindora)
Coccinia grandis · Fruit vegetable
Top 10 pairings
Ivy gourd (Coccinia grandis) — known across South Asia as tindora, tendli, kundru or kovakkai — is a small, smooth, oval cucurbit eaten as an immature green vegetable. Picked young it is firm and crisp with mild, faintly green-cucumber flesh and many soft white seeds; left to ripen it turns scarlet-red, soft and sweet.
Picking a good onedrag
Small, hard, striped deep greenFlushed red and soft
Full greenEveryday bestThe all-rounder: stir-fried with spice, curried, stuffed or boiled. Seeds are still small and soft, so nothing needs coring. Taste a cut one first and reject a sharply bitter fruit - wild forms run bitter, and cooking will not talk it round.
SkinEven green, the gloss dulling, still smooth
SqueezeFirm, the barest give under the thumb
Stem endStub dry and pale, shoulder tight around it
Cut one and taste itWhite flesh, soft seeds; mild, faintly cucumber