Lauki /Doodhi kofta (लौकी के कोफ्ते)or bottle gourd kofta is a commonly made main course curry in northern part of india. The soft, melt in mouth dumplings made out of lauki dipped in onion tomato based gravy make anybody to drool for them. It contains many vitamins and minerals, such as, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, Vitamin A, C and folate. Ayurveda recommends cooked lauki or bottle gourd for better digestion. It is cooling, calming, diuretic and anti-bilious. This is of course the easiest way to feed lauki / bottle gourd to the person who don’t like to eat normal lauki curry.
Prepration time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 25 minutes
Serving: 5-6
I remember my first attempt of making lauki kofta and was not worth mentioning when the kofta became hard. Since then with trial and error have learnt how to make soft kofta and rich tasty gravy.
Ingredients:
For Koftas:-
- Bottle Gourd / Lauki – 500 gram
- Gram Flour / Besan – 6-7 tablespoon
- Green Chilli- 2 (finely chopped)
- Grated Ginger – 1/2 tablespoon
- Salt- 1/3 teaspoon or As per your taste
- Roasted Cumin powder – 1/3 teaspoon
- Oil- To Deep fry
For Gravy:
- Onion – 2 (medium sized)
- Tomato- 4 (medium sized)
- Green chillies – 2
- Ginger-Garlic Paste -1 tablespoon
- Beaten Yogurt – 4 tablespoon
- Asafoetida- 1/4 teaspoon
- Cumin Seeds – 1/2 teaspoon
- Coriander Powder- 1 teaspoon
- Turmeric Powder- 1/2 teaspoon
- Red Chilli Powder- 1/4 teaspoon
- Salt – 1/2 tea spoon or as per your taste
- Garam Masala- 1/3 teaspoon
- Chopped Coriander leaves -1 table spoon
Recipe:
First of all, wash and peel Bottle Gourd / Lauki and grate it. Now squeeze the water from the lauki with the help of your palms collecting the water in a bowl. Do not throw away the squeezed water as its full of nutrients. We will use this water while making gravy.
Heat the oil for deep frying the koftas in a kadhai or Pan. Now in a mixing bowl, add grated lauki, gram flour / besan, chopped green chillies, grated ginger, roasted cumin powder and salt.
Mix them properly and divide the mixture into equal parts. Make round balls with the mixture and deep fry them in the warm oil until they are nice golden all over.
Once they are fried, take them out and keep on a kitchen towel to soak excess oil.
Grind the onions to a smooth paste and finely chop the tomatoes and green chillies.
Now add 2 tablespoon of oil to a pan and heat it. Once warm, add asafoetida and cumin seeds. When they crackle, add onion paste and saute until its pinkish brown in colour.
Add Ginger – garlic paste and saute again till raw smell goes off. After that add all the spices except salt and roast the mixture for one minute.
Now add chopped tomatoes and chillies and saute till the mixture starts loosing oil. Add beaten yogurt and saute continuously till the mixture starts boiling. Add 1 cup of plain water and also the water which we kept from squeezing lauki, and let it boil.
Once you get the first boil, add salt and koftas to it and cook till you get the desired consistency of your gravy.
Serve and enjoy with the paratha, naan or rice of your choice.
You may also like to try this super hit recipe of Malai Kofta.
Key Notes:
- Always squeeze the water from lauki properly otherwise the mixture would be of thin consistency which would result in difficulties in making koftas.
- Fry the koftas on low-medium heat, otherwise they would be cooked outside and raw from inside.
- Always stir the gravy after adding yogurt otherwise it will curdle.
- You can add dried mint leaves/dried fenugreek leaves to the koftas mixture to give an extra flavour. Just add 1/2 tablespoon of it if you desire to give added aroma.