Few months ago, our friend Mahi had invited us for dinner and she made this lauki raita along with many Andhra special dishes. I had never tasted this before. After coming home, I googled it and I realised it was a pretty popular dish. This is my version.
Bottlegourd or lauki is one of the vegetables I buy during almost every trip to Indian store. It was mostly used to make this khadi(burfi) or payasa when I was growing up, I loved these dishes. Now I mostly make savory dishes with bottlegourd. This raita goes very well with chapatis or rice.
Pictorial: Make a seasoning and then add bottlegourd, cook. Add yogurt, salt and serve.
Bottlegourd Raita (Lauki Raita)
Ingredients
- 3 cups 1 medium sized bottlegourd bottlegourd pieces
- 1 cup thick yogurt curd
- 2 green chillies
- 1/2 tea spn urad dal
- 1 red chilli optional
- 4-5 curry leaves
- A pinch asafoetida hing
- 1/2 tea spn mustard seeds
- Oil
- Salt
Instructions
- Heat oil and add mustard seeds and urad dal.
- When they start popping, add hing, curry leaves, red chili cut into two pieces.
- Add the bottlegourd pieces, green chilli slit into two pieces.
- Pour 1/2 cup water and cook. I pressure cooked it for 2 whistles.
- Once it is cooled down, add curd(yogurt), salt.
- Serve immediately with chapati/roti or rice.
Notes
Bottlegourd Raita (Lauki Raita)
Ingredients
- 3 cups 1 medium sized bottlegourd bottlegourd pieces
- 1 cup thick yogurt curd
- 2 green chillies
- 1/2 tea spn urad dal
- 1 red chilli optional
- 4-5 curry leaves
- A pinch asafoetida hing
- 1/2 tea spn mustard seeds
- Oil
- Salt
Instructions
- Heat oil and add mustard seeds and urad dal.
- When they start popping, add hing, curry leaves, red chili cut into two pieces.
- Add the bottlegourd pieces, green chilli slit into two pieces.
- Pour 1/2 cup water and cook. I pressure cooked it for 2 whistles.
- Once it is cooled down, add curd(yogurt), salt.
- Serve immediately with chapati/roti or rice.
Notes
As many of my regular readers know, I am a huge fan of stuffed parathas, just like my parents. Aayi always mentions the parathas that my brother’s cook made. When the cook left, my brother would bring parathas from some hotel for her. One of their favorites is mooli paratha. I had not tried making these before. Few days ago, I had to use up a radish and I thought it was good idea to try making these and they came out delicious. My kids who did not want to eat any vegetables, didn’t complain when I gave them these. I thought I would write it down here so that I won’t forget again.
Pictorial: I used this huge radish we get here. It had lot of water. I grated it in food processor. Squeeze the water out of it. Almost a cup of water came out of it!.
Make the stuffing. Stuff the stuffing in outer cover. Roll into paratha.
Radish Paratha (Mooli Paratha)
Ingredients
- For Stuffing
- 2 cups grated radish
- 1 tea spn chilli powder
- 1/2 tea spn amchoor powder
- 1/2 tea spn garam masala
- 1 tea spn ginger garlic paste
- A pinch turmeric powder
- Oil
- Salt
- For Cover
- 2 cups water water drained from radish and plain water
- 4 cups wheat flour
- Ghee/Oil optional
Instructions
- Peel and grate the radish.
- Take the grated radish in a clean thin cloth, Squeeze it out till most of the water is drained out of it.
- Use that water to make the dough.
- Mix water salt and wheat flour to make the dough.
- Knead it very well. Apply a little oil to it and keep it aside for atleast 30mins.
- In a thick bottomed pan, heat oil, add ginger garlic paste and then the radish.
- Fry for few minutes, add turmeric powder, chilli powder, garam masala, amchoor powder, salt.
- Mix everything well. Take off the heat and let it cool to room temperature.
- Take ping pong sized ball of cover, roll it into a small circle.
- Take a ball of stuffing, keep it on the cover and seal the cover around the stuffing.
- Roll into paratha (be careful while rolling, taking care not to rip the cover. It takes a bit of practice to get this right.).
- Roast the paratha on hot tava.
- Serve hot with pickle and plain yogurt. I mix a little chaat masala in yogurt and serve that with paratha.
