Aayi’s Recipes Konkan/Konkani food blog, Indian culinary treasures

Bottle gourd is called gardudde(Konkani), lauki(Hindi). If you are a fan of Swami Ramdev, the great yoga guru, you would have heard the name of this vegetable a million times. He says, this cute vegetable has too many medicinal values in it. For me, bottle gourd was synonym with ‘bottle gourd burfi‘. I never thought of making anything with it even though my aayi prepared a lot of dishes with it. But when I was doing my bachelors, I and my friend used to buy this vegetable a lot. We saw one of our friend making this delicious dish and we were hooked to it.

I think this is one of the easiest recipes to make. Readymade or homemade peanut chutney powder is added to cooked bottle gourd to bring out the delicious taste of peanuts. I like to eat it mixed with rice or as a side dish.

Ingredients:
3 cups of bottle gourd cut into large pieces
1/2 cup chopped onion
1-2 tbl spns peanut chutney powder
Oil
1/2 tea spn mustard seeds
A pinch turmeric
Salt

Method:
Heat oil, add mustard seeds, when they start popping, add onion and fry till thry turn translucent. Add bottle gourd pieces, salt and turmeric. Add 1/2 cup of water, close the lid and let it cook. When the bottle gourd pieces are half cooked, add chutney powder. Cook till the pieces are completely cooked.

Serves : 2-3
Preparation time : 15mins