Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Sorakaya/Anapakaya/Bottle Gourd Curry with Milk (Paluposina Koora)


One lonely bottle gourd had been awaiting its turn in my refrigerator since about a week. I finally got my hands on it tonight! This is my second Sorakaya/Anapakaya/Lauki preperation. The first one was a dish called dappalam I had posted earlier. For dessert tonight, it was bananas foster. I made the bananas foster in the same way I made the mango-bananas foster. Instead of the mango, I added one more banana. I also added about 4 tbsp of cream (milk can be subsituted) toward the end of the bananas foster cooking to make it a little more creamy and it was just delicious!

The sorakaya curry is very easy to prepare as you can see below!

Software
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  • 1 medium sized sorakaya/bottle gourd, peeled and cut into cubes
  • 1 small-medium onion, diced
  • 3-4 Indian green chilis/pachi mirapakaylu, sliced fine
  • 2 cloves garlic, chopped fine
  • 1/2 inch piece of ginger, chopped fine
  • 1/2 tsp turmeric powder/pasupu/haldi
  • 1 tsp coriander powder
  • 2 tsp extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 tsp black mustard seeds/aavalu/rai
  • 1 tsp cumin seeds/jeelakarra/jeera
  • 1 sprig curry leaves, chopped
  • 1/3 cup milk
  • salt, to taste
  • cilantro to garnish
Hardware
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  • One pressure cooker
Method
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  • Put the pressure cooker on medium-high heat, add the oil, add the mustard and the jeera seeds.
  • After they pop add the curry leaves, green chilis, onion, garlic and ginger and fry until onions are translucent. Add the turmeric powder and stir.
  • Add the bottle gourd pieces and saute for about 1-2 minutes.
  • Add little water just to cover the bottle gourd pieces and cover the pressure cooker. Pressure cook for 1-2 whistles. Alternatively, you could cook covered in a regular saute pan until the bottle gourd pieces are soft.
  • After the pressure dies down, open the pressure, add the coriander powder and the milk and cook until the milk heats through.
  • Garnish with the cilantro leaves.
Serving Suggestion: This goes really well with plain white rice and chapathis.

20 comments:

Vaishali said...

Hi l2c,
I, too, cook bottle gourd with milk sometimes, but my preparation is slightly different. I'll blog about it, next time I make it. Your idea of using pressure cooker for this is something that I need to try out. Thanks for the post.

sailu said...

Paaluposina kuralu..any kura is my favorite.The taste of anapakaaya cooked in milk is simple heavenly!

Lakshmi said...

this is nice. I use red chilli powder instead of green chillies, will prepare like this next time.

Priya Bhaskaran said...

L2c, I have tried bottlegourd only for sambhar. This is something different. Will give a try soon!!

Kitchenmate said...

Yummy curry and pictures are great. I make curry like this and it called Surakai Pal kootu, I grind g.chillies, jeera and little milk while grinding. It tastes good too.
I always pressure cook surakai for 2-3 whistles (mom's tip), so that it gets cooked faster without its shaped getting deformed.

KA said...

This is one of the healthy recipes that I absolutely love. My friends used to make fun of me due to the reason that I make this milk curry with any kind of veggie. I don't cook them anymore since Krishna isn't a huge fan of paala kooralu.

BDSN said...

Hey L2C..
I always dint pick up this veggie at the grocery store..I was wondering what to do...well not the next time...

Tanuja said...

Hi L2c,

sorakaya pallakura I make the same kind, Its really tasty when we it hot with hot rice wow yummy,

Luv2cook said...

Vaishali:

I will be interested in reading your version!

SH:

WOW. That is nice. When I was little, this was my favorite veggie too. I loved the sambhar made out of it. I will blog about it sometime soon. The cooker cuts down on my cooking time a lot.

Sailu:

I agree. I still haven't tried your brinjal paluposina koora. Need to try it.

Lakshmi:

This is the way mom makes it. Also, I treasure my chili powder as much as I can because I brought it from India. My mom made it. As much as possible I use green chilis :-).

Priya:

Lemme know how it turns out.

KM:

My mom actually does grind the greenchilis with some salt. But I don't do that to save some time. Never thought about adding jeera to ground green chilis. Will try that next time.

Santhi:

Never heard about the religious reasons of not eating this. This is the first I heard about it. BTW, since you know where I live, you are welcome to stop by and I will make this curry for you ;-)!

KA:

That is funny. Beerakaya, Zucchini and Potlakaya are the only veggies I have made with milk. I think adding milk gives it a very nice flavor and I love that :).

BDSN:

Since the start of Spring, this veggie has been showing up in the Oriental store and it is very hard for me to not pick it up everytime. But luckily this veggie is flexible enough to adapt to different flavors !

wheresmymind said...

No coconut milk?

Priya Bhaskaran said...

Hey L2c,I have tagged you for the meme:)

Sumi said...

good one, Tillnow I have used this vegetable only for sambhar, should try this receipe the next time

Lakshmi said...

Hi, yesterday I have prepared this curry, will be posting it soon on my blog. The curry came out really good.
thanks L2C.

Luv2cook said...

Wheresmymind:

Nope. No coconut milk. The part of India we are from, we don't use much coconut milk in our cooking :).

Priya:

Thanks for the meme.

Sumi:

Do try it and let me know how it comes out.

Lakshmi:
WOW. That is great news. You are the first person to try one of my recipes as far as I know :).

Thanks,

Anonymous said...

hi ,

i am from nellore, andhra , we usually do not use ginger & garlic for this curry. will try today.

Anonymous said...

great curry.. if you want to skip the pressure cooking part, just dice up the gourd into much smaller pieces. While seasoning, you might want to add some channa dhal, it came out well. it gave the curry a little crisp.

Anonymous said...

The curry came out tooooooo good..
Same like what my mom makes...

Thanks you very much....

Deepa

Anonymous said...

great recipe thanks. my family loved it.

Souvenirs de mon école de droit said...

Really gud one one more suggestion is instead of method u can use programming :)

Unknown said...

Looks great. I am going to try this out. Brings back meories :)