Sweet and Sour Bottle Gourd Curry (Sorakaya Antu Pulusu)

We're staying warm this Autumn with comforting food like the dish below. It's got a little bit of everything and lots of flavor. 

Ingredients

- About 10" long Bottle Gourd (also known as long squash), peeled and chopped into 1" cubes

- Size of big lemon of Tamarind

- 3 Tbsp Brown Sugar

- 1/2 tsp green chili paste (or 1/4 tsp of chili powder)

- a pinch of Turmeric

- 1 tsp Salt or as per your taste

- 2 Tbsp Besan (Chickpea flour)

- 2 Tbsp Rice Flour

Ingredients for the seasoning:

- 2 Tbsp Vegetable oil

- 1/2 tsp Mustard seeds

- 1/2 tsp Cumin seeds

- A pinch of Hing (Asafotida)

- 6 to 8 Curry leaves (fresh or dry) - optional 

- A pinch of chili powder

Procedure

Soak tamarind in half cup of warm water for 15 minutes. Squeeze the juice using additional water. Alternately add the soaked tamarind into a blender, add additional 3 cups of water and blend for one minute. Then strain the liquid and remove the tamarind fiber. In a small pressure cooker, add the chopped bottle gourd, tamarind juice, brown sugar, turmeric, chili paste, and salt. Pressure cook for 2 to 3 whistles. When the steam is released, open the cooker and boil the mixture on low-medium heat. 

Add the besan (Chickpea flour) and rice flour in half a cup of water to make a sauce like consistency. Mix this sauce into the bottle gourd mixture to thicken the tamarind sauce and cook for another 2 to 3 minutes or until it thickens. Heat vegetable oil in a small pan, add mustard seeds and when they splutter, add cumin seeds and then hing and pinch of chili powder. Remove from heat and add curry leaves and then add to the bottle gourd mixture. 

Serve hot with rice and/or your favorite flatbread.  

Warm Up This Autumn with David's Bottle Gourds Sambhar

Our first dish of the season was contributed by guest blogger, David Huggett who hails from Roanoke, Virginia. Join us as we discover and learn more about David's adventures in South Indian cooking:

As a home chef who holds the cuisine of India as a personal favorite, I consider it to be quite an honor to be invited by Jahnavi to write this guest post. I'm a big fan of her blog and the recipes which she and her mother create. 
Let me begin by stating that I am an American and have never traveled to India. However, I have long held a keen interest in the food and culture of the sub-continent. As a young man, I was first introduced to Indian cuisine by the kindness of a friend's family and several excellent restaurants in the Washington D.C. area. I was quite intrigued by the complexity of flavors and soon, I began experimenting with my own Indian inspired dishes. Thus began my twenty year journey into learning to prepare dishes from different areas of India, and to be as close to authentic as I know how to do.
At a recent trip to an Indian grocer, I was interested in the big beautiful Bottle Gourds, which were for sale. I asked the lady operating the store how I might prepare the gourd, and specifically asked if it would go well in sambhar. She explained that this is known in parts of India as Dudhi, and it would indeed work well in sambhar. I bought two dudhi and the store keeper threw in a nice aborigine (eggplant) and Wax Gourd.

Here's the recipe for Dudhi Sambhar that I prepared for my family recently.

Ingredients:
- 1 Dudhi (Bottle Gourd)
- 1 Wax Gourd
- 1 Capsicum or Green Bell Pepper
- 1 Aborgine or Baby Eggplant
- 1 large Onion
- 1 firm medium Tomato
- 1 cup Chana Dal
- 1 tbsp Sambhar powder
- 1 tbsp dry Tamarind
- 1 tsp Salt
- 1 tsp Turmeric
- A pinch of Asafetida
 For the seasoning:
- 3 tbsp Butter or ghee
- 1 tsp Cumin seeds
- 1 tsp Mustard seeds
- Dozen fresh Curry Leaves


Procedure:
We begin preparing the sambhar by lightly toasting the chana dal until fragrant.

In a pressure cooker, add the lightly toasted dal, 3 cups of water, salt, turmeric and asafetida. Bring to pressure and after 10 minutes, remove pressure cooker from heat and allow pressure to drop before opening the lid. Then mash well.

Peel dudhi and wax gourd and chop them into 1" cubes. Add them to the dal along with 1 cup of water. Place closed pressure cooker back on medium heat and bring to pressure. Once it reaches 10 lbs pressure, remove from heat and allow pressure to reduce.
Meanwhile, roughly chop the onion and capsicum. In a separate pan, heat the two tablespoons of butter. Toss in cumin, mustard seeds and curry leaves. Add onion and fry at medium heat until the mixture begins to turn golden brown. Add capsicum and stir for one minute. Then add chopped tomato, Sambhar powder, and salt. Fry this mixture for several minutes until tomatoes have become pasty and oil begins to separate from the vegetables.

Stir a small portion of the dal mixture into the onions and then return that to the dal. Soak dry tamarind in some lukewarm water for ten minutes and strain this into the dal. Allow the dish to simmer for 10 more minutes to allow the raw tamarind taste to cook out. Heat one tablespoon of butter in a pan. Add the fresh curry leaves and fry for 30 seconds. Drizzle the butter over the sambhar. Serve with Basmatic rice and chappati.


Check out more of David's Indian cooking...