Ash Gourd is a wonderful low calorie vegetable. It has substantial amount of moisture and it acts as a coolant. Ash gourd curry is best for hot summer afternoon lunches. In Udupi most people grow this vegetable in their garden and use it for cooking. Most parts of this ash gourd are useful in cooking and nothing is wasted. The outer skin/shell can be used in chutney preparation, thick flesh can be used in curry/sambar preparation and topmost soft flesh can be used for Tambli or yogurt curry.
In Udupi the following four varieties of curries are prepared using ash gourd.
Ash gourd sambar using toor daal – Bol Koddel
Ash Gourd Recipes -Ash Gourd Curry Recipe
Ingredients
- Ash gourd- 1 Kg
- Toor dal- 1/2 cup
- Jaggery- Big lemon sized
- Tamarind- Small lemon sized
- Green chillies- 2
- Curry leaves- 2 strands
- Turmeric powder- 1/4 tsp
- Asafoetida- A pinch
- Udupi Sambar powder- 3 and 1/2 tsp heaped
- Salt to taste
For seasoning
- Mustard seeds- 1 tsp
- Urad dal- 1 tsp
- Red chillies- 1
- Curry leaves- 1 strand
Instructions
Preparation
- Pressure cook toor dal till soft and mushy.
- Peel the skin and cut the thick flesh of pumpkin in to medium sized pieces. Scoop out the seeds and separate the soft flesh. This soft flesh can be used in tambli (curry with yogurt)preparation.
Method
- Add ash gourd pieces in to a cooking pan with enough water to cook. Add turmeric powder, slit green chillies, jaggery, curry leaves and tamarind extract. Once it boils, simmer it and let it cook till the pieces are tender. Add one tbsp Udupi sambar powder as well so that the pieces too can intake the aroma of powder.
- Now add pressure cooked toor dal, salt, asafoetida and remaining sambar powder. Check the consistency of curry, if needed add required amount of water. Bring it to boil.
- Add the seasoning to this ash gourd curry and garnish with coriander leaves.
- Serve hot with rice.
Note
- Add water as per the consistency needed. It should not be too thick nor too thin.
- It tastes mild spice, for more spiciness add more green chillies.
Meet you all with one more interesting Udupi recipe. Till then bye.
Thanks to this lovely site..I have been able to explore the taste of certain veggies that I never got to taste before.. And with such tasty recipes made with such simple ingredients..cooking time has been equally enjoyable..This recipe really took me down memorylane. (: