Indian Curry | Vegetarian Recipe - HealthyLife

(Recipe by Lalitha Venkata Subramanian: Ms. Lalitha resides in Bengaluru, Karnataka. She is an excellent cook and known for her vegetarian dishes- both Tamil and Karnataka traditional dishes, she likes to cook authentic North Indian foods too. Lalitha’s specialties are traditional sweets, curries, soups, rotis, breakfasts and Indian snacks. She likes gardening, drawing various rangoli designs, listening to carnatic music. Expect more traditional recipes from Lalitha in this column)

Snake gourd commonly known as padavala or serpentine gourd is not that well known worldwide. But it is very popular in countries like India, Sri Lanka and other Asian countries like Myanmar, Pakistan, Nepal, China and some parts of Africa and Australia. Fruits can grow up to 5 ft. Plants are also known for their beautiful flower. Snake Gourd contains a rich variety of nutrients, vitamins, and minerals that are essential for human health, including significant levels of dietary fiber, a small number of calories, and high levels of protein. In terms of vitamins, snake gourd possess vitamin A, B, C, as well as manganese, magnesium, calcium, iron, potassium, and iodine. Here is a simple and delicious Indian dish one can make using this rich gourd.

Preparation time: Half an hour, serving for 3 people

Ingredients:

• Snake gourd: 3 medium sizes
• Grated coconut: 1/2 cup
• Toor dal (yellow lentil) -1/2 cup
• Red chillies: 6
• Urd dal: 1 tbs
• Cumin seeds- 1 tsp
• Pepper -1 tsp
• Asafetida – Little, Curry leaves -10, mustard seeds. oil – for seasoning
• Turmeric powder -1 tsp
• Salt – to taste

Method:

1) Wash, cut and remove the inner pulp from the snake gourds. Further cut snake gourds into half -one inch pieces

2) Pressure cook the gourd pieces and toor dal in separate containers.

3) On a pan- add urd dal, cumin seeds, pepper and dry fry on low flame

4) Grind the fried ingredients with coconut.

5) In a fresh container add grinded ingredients to cooked vegetable, add cooked daal, salt and turmeric powder – mix and keep for boiling under medium flame

6) In a pan heat oil- add mustard, curry leaves, asafetida. Pour this on to curry mix.

One can have this curry with chapatti, rotis, white or brown rice or breakfast items like dosa and idli.