Lau r Kofta curry|| Lauki Kofta Curry
Unlike Europe or America, we do not have Bangladeshi stores here in Israel. Therefore, most of the vegetables and Indian fishes remain unavailable here. Whatever, I manage to get here is literally hunted either by me or my husband in our farmer’s market. I even go to the extent of going to our neighboring city just to buy raw produce. Bottle gourd or lau was also not available in Israel until few years back. But now since we get it here it is often cooked in my kitchen. Therefore, having very less variety of Indian vegetables available, they get repeated over and over again.
So each time you have to come up with something new to make everyone happy. I have written many bottle gourd recipes earlier on my blog. Lau Chingri, Lau r khosha bata, Dudh lau, Lau die tetor daal, Lau r shukto are to name a few. There are many other preparations which I make at home but never thought of writing down are lau ghonto, mug daal die lau, bori koraishuti die lau etc. But this time thought of preparing something different, an amish(non vegetarian) version of bottle gourd as one would say in a Bengali household. Na na there is no fish or meat in the preparation. But I have used onion to make this kofta curry.
Lau r Kofta Curry
Ingredients
For the Kofta
- 1 medium sized bottle gourd peeled and grated
- 1 small onion thinly sliced
- ¼ teaspoon of turmeric powder
- Salt to taste
- 2 tablespoons of chopped coriander leaves
- 1 teaspoon of red chili powder
- ⅓ cup of besan
- 1 tablespoon of oil + oil for frying
For the curry
- 1 tablespoon of ghee
- 1 tablespoon of oil
- ½ teaspoon of cumin seeds
- 1 teaspoon of turmeric powder
- 1 teaspoon of red chili powder
- 1 teaspoon of Kashmiri red chili powder
- 1 teaspoon of coriander powder
- 1 teaspoon of garam masala powder
- ⅓ cup of yogurt
- 1 teaspoon of sugar
- 2 onions
- 1 tomato
- 1 tablespoon of grated ginger
- 2-3 green chilies (or according to your resistance)
- ¼ cup of yogurt
- Salt to taste
Instructions
For the kofta
- The grated bottle gourd releases a lot of water. Squeeze the excess water from the bottle gourd as much as possible and keep the liquid aside.
- To the squeezed bottle gourd, add turmeric powder, thinly sliced onions, coriander leaves and besan and mix well. Do not add salt at this point. The bottle gourd releases lot of water on addition of salt and therefore binding of the kofta will get problematic.
- In a pan, take oil for frying the koftas and heat it.
- Now, add salt to the mixture and mix it evenly. Now add about one tablespoon of oil to the mixture and mix it again with the kofta mixture.
- Now, make roundels of the kofta mixture and carefully drop the koftas in hot oil. (I have shallow fried the koftas. You can also deep fry them if you want)
- Fry the koftas to brown colour on each side and keep them aside.
For the curry
- Make a paste of the onion, tomato and ginger and keep them aside.
- Add 1 tablespoon of oil and 1 tablespoon of ghee to the kadai and heat it.
- To the hot oil, add the cumin seeds and let them splutter.
- Add the tomato and onion paste to the kadai and saute them for a minute.
- Add turmeric powder, coriander powder, garam masala powder and red chili powder to the kadai along with a splash of water.
- Continue sauteing the spices till you see oil leaving the sides of the pan.
- In a bowl, take the yogurt and the Kashmiri red chili powder and whisk them thoroughly.
- Add the whisked yogurt to the kadai and mix.
- Add about 1½ cup of water to the kadai, followed by sugar and let it simmer.
- Now, add the koftas in the gravy and let them cook on low medium flame for 4-5 minutes.
- Turn off the flame and enjoy. (Remember: The gravy should be thin when you turn off the flame. This is because the koftas continue absorbing water from the gravy and the gravy reduces)
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