For the gravy Onion 2 Tomato 2 Garlic 5-6 cloves Cinnamon 1 small stick Star anise 1 Cloves 2 Red chili 2 Cashew nuts 6-7 Oil 1 tblsp Red chili powder 1/2 tsp Coriander powder 1/2 tsp Cumin powder 1/2 tsp Garam masala 1 tsp Kasoori methi 2 pinches Fresh cream 1 tblsp (optional) For the kofta Lauki | bottle gourd |doodhi 2 cups (grated) Red chili powder 1/2 tsp Cumin powder 1/2 tsp Coriander powder 1/4 tsp Besan | Kadalai maavu 5 tblsp Salt to taste Rice flour 2 tsp Oil to fry or shallow fry the koftas
Peel the skin of the bottle gourd | lauki and scoop out the seeds. Use only the flesh part and grate this in a grater.
Squeeze out the extra juice from the grated lauki. Press this hard and extract the extra juice. By doing this you can get rid of the moisture and get perfect koftas.
The juice you have extracted can be added for making chapati dough. Or you can add salt and pepper powder to this and drink it as such. Also can be used for making south Indian rasam too. Add the squeezed lauki to a wide bowl. Add red chili powder, besan, cumin powder, coriander powder and salt to this. Mix well and make this into a whole mass. Do not add any water. If you feel the dough is sticky you can add 1-2 tblsp of besan | kadalaimaavu to this.
Grease your hands with oil and make this into equal lemon sized balls. Roll this on the rice flour and keep aside. The purpose of rolling it in the rice flour is to keep the lauki kofta balls firm, so that they won’t disintegrate while deep frying or shallow frying.
I cooked the kofta balls in appe pan | paniyaram pan. Also i tried deep frying method too for 2 koftas.
The appe pan method took s little extra time but it is healthy. If you are deep frying, keep the oil hot and bring the temperature to medium and fry the koftas. Frying in high flame will not make the inside portion cooked.
If making in paniyaram pan, add few drops of oil and place the koftas into that and cook on all sides. Do it in a medium flame so that the inside will get cooked. Let’s make the gravy. Chop the onions and tomatoes finely. Peel the skin of garlic and ginger. In a pan add 1/2 tblsp oil and add in the red chili,cashew nuts,star anise,cinnamon, cloves, ginger and garlic. Cook this for 2 minutes and add the finely chopped onions.
Once the onions become translucent add the tomatoes. Cook till the tomatoes become mushy.
Discard the whole spices (cinnamon, cloves and star anise) Allow this to completely cool and grind into a fine paste.
Add 1/2 tblsp oil in the pan and add the ground paste to this. Cook this for 2 minutes. Be careful and keep the flame in medium, the gravy will splutter. Add the red chili powder,salt, cumin powder, coriander powder an garam masala.
Add 1 cup of water to this and add the kasoori methi to this. Let this boil for 5 minutes in a low flame. Stir in between. Add the fresh cream to this and mix well.
Switch off the flame. Add the kofta balls to this. These kofta balls be added 2 hours before serving, so that the flavour from the gravy gets infused into the kofta balls.
Serve lauki kofta curry with roti | paratha. We had with lachaa parathas and masala chaas.
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