Summer is the season when different variations of dudhi, padwal, tondli and bakar crop up on the dinner table. Author and culinary consultant Saee Koranne-Khandekar's memories of baakar, or pumpkin, are associated with her grandmother's. "I had heard about the Nagpuri baakar bhaaji from my grandmother, who had spent a few years in Nagpur. She used to make a more frugal version of the dish at home. The first time I made it, though, was when I was about 18, and was visiting my uncle on the Maharashtra-Karnataka border. One evening, we went to a farm belonging to a friend, and there were pumpkins ready to be harvested. We came home with one," she recalls. "This was decades before phone cameras were around, but I remember the rotund pumpkin and its graceful leaves like an impressionist still life work. The bhaaji turned out fabulous, of course, and this is one of my favourite ways to cook and eat the vegetable," she adds.

Recipe: Nagpur Baakar Bhaaji
Yield: 4 servings