Sorakaya (Bottle Gourd) Kofta

Well I had too many bottle gourds in my garden this year. After trying to give away as many as I could I had to try out a new recipe apart from what I know. So I ventured into the www and found a recipe and changed it to make my own. The original can be found at http://www.ammas.com/a1/advisors/index.cfm?r=vr&recipeid=746&cid=93902

I had like 6 cups of grated bottle gourd but ended up deep frying only 2 cups probably. I did not add cream as instructed in the original recipe. Anyways here is my version
For the Kofta:

2 Cups Grated sorakaya
3 tbsp Besan
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp red chilly powder
1 tbsp Ginger-garlic paste
5-6 tbsp corriander leaves chopped
1 tbsp garam masala

Gravy
1/2 cup tomato puree
1 tbsp red chilli powder
1 tbsp ginger-garlic paste
Salt according to taste

Masala Paste
1 large onion
2 tbsp grated fresh coconut
2 green chillies
2 red chillies
1 tbsp cumin seeds
1 tbsp dhania seeds
1tbsp khus khus (gasagasalu)
2 tbsp ginger-garlic paste
salt to taste

Making Koftas:
You will need to grate the sorakaya and if I havent advocated enough for my friends and family to buy a food processor here I go again "Life is easy with a food Processor". I took out my madeline and was trying to grate when I decided this is not happening and took my food processor and used hte grating option and woooohoooo in like 2 min the big entire sorakaya was grated. I LOVE MY FOOD PROCESSOR :)

So this is how much I had after grating and this is how it looks




Add a little salt to it and wait for a minute and then squeeze out the water from it. My trick for it rather than squeezing by hand was to use a strainer and press down the grated sorakaya so the water would just drain down.




Make sure you squeeze out as much water as possible. Add all the rest of ingredients needed to make the kofta (listed above) and this is how it looks later. One word of advice if you have large quantity mix the ingredients batch by batch else letting the grated mixture stay will ooze more water making it more harder for you to work with

Shape into balls and deep fry in oil

Deep fry until it turns into nice brown. Make sure your stove is not too high since you want the balls to cook inside. It will still be soft but then it should be cooked inside. Only the outer layer will become crispy.

Grind all the masala ingredients (listed above). If you need to add a little water to get a paste please do so. Heat some oil in a pan and then fry the masala paste you just ground. Fry this paste for sometime until you see oil floating. (Make sure you have a lid covered else your stove will be a mess for the splashing). add Chilli powder, tomato puree and little water and let it cook.

Once done just before eating add the balls into the curry and garnish with corriander.




Enjoy!!! Well this one turned out to be a good expirement. I did not mix the gravy and the balls thinking they would become soft when in gravy so I had them seperate until serving time.

Vinayaka Chavathi Undralu/Kudumulu

Happy Vinayaka Chavathi!!!!!




Above pictures are flowers from my garden and after the pooja of lord ganesh

I used approximations for the below recipe and also this recipe is for the plain ones. There is also the stuffing one which usually consists of grated coconut with elaichi, and bellam pakam (Gud syrup) made into a thick ball and stuffed inside the plain one.

Rice Flour -1 cup
Grated Jaggery (Bellam) - 1 cup
Elaichi powder

In a sauce pan put some water and add jaggery. Heat it for 5 min so that the jaggery dissolves. Turn off and let it cool. Mix in the rice flour slowly into it. Make balls and patties out of it. In a Idli plate, grease with some ghee and put these and cook as you would for idli and the undralu and kudumulu are ready

Murku

Another recipe from my ammama and which I want to and havent tried out yet.

Besan 1/2 kg
Rice Flour 1/2 kg
Vamu (not sure what the english name is) 1/2 tsp
Butter 5-10 gm( seems less here but she said small ball and this is what she thinks is a small ball, will update when I actually do it)
Salt as needed
Chilli powder as needed

So mix all with water and to the required consistency and then use the chakali press to make the murku and deep fry in oil

Chekkalu

My husband wanted to eat chekkalu and got this recipe from my Ammama. Havent tried it out yet but will for sure. So that I dont loose the recipe, I am posting this here

Rice flour - 1/2 kg
Moong Dal (pesara pappu) and Channa Dal - a fistful (that was her direction, will update on how much I used)
Chillies -10 (depending on how spicy you need)
Butter - 10 gm (that seemed a little low, she actually said a small ball and when asked for measurement gave me this)
Jeera
Curry leaves
Salt as needed mixed in water

She also mentioned some people add ginger but she prefers without it

Well mix everything and then make the consistency soft so that it is not sticky but not too hard. and then make small balls and then press with your fingers to get the chekkalu. Deep fry them in oil.

Well let me try this and update on how it came out later.....

Poornalu/Bobattu

For Varalakshmi vratam I wanted to try out my favorite poornam. After many attempts of tasting the poornam my craving for it wasnt satisfied and none made the mark which I had tasted back home. So I made an attempt to make my own and Whola!!!!! great success. So here goes the recipe

For the filling:

• Chana Dal: 1 Cup
• Bellam (Jaggery) 2 to 2 1/2 cups grated. I think I tasted a little and added more as needed. You might want to do that too :)
• Elaichi Powder: 2 tbsp (a lot of flavor comes fron here)
  

Soak the Chana Dal for atleast 2 hours and then cook it in a pressure cooker with 2 cups of water (double the amount of chana dal). Wait for 2 whistles and leave it until the pressure totally goes off.

Mix in the grated Jaggery and the elaichi powder. Turn on the stove to low and keep mixing frequently to avoid burning. Oh! forgot to mention I think I added little butter too during the mixing so that it wouldnt stick to the bottom of the pressure cooker. You have to cook for a really long time until the filling thickens. To test it take a small amount, let it cool and try and make a ball. It shouldnt be really sticky. After this point you are done doing the filling.

For the outer batter I used my Dosa batter measurements and it turned out perfect

• Rice: 2 cups
• Urad Dal: 1 cup
  

Soak the Rice, Urad Dal overnight.
Blend to a smooth paste as you would do for dosa. What I did is I did not let it ferment as we would usually do for dosa after making the batter. I think the outer coat would give you a sour taste. Well some people like it and my preferance was to try without it. And I added a little sugar (1 tbsp) and salt (small pinch) which I was going to use. Mind you, don't add this to the entire batter because you could use the rest for making dosa.

Well the batter and filling are done. All you need to do now is make medium size balls with the filling and then dip the ball into the dosa batter. Here is a trick so the filling does not ooze out of the batter and spoil your oil. Use only two fingers when dipping and dropping the ball into the batter and oil. Also, the batter consistency should be correct. Too thick your outer layer is going to be thick, too thin you are going to expose the filling to the oil. And enjoy the delicious Poornams.

Oh! I still have some filling left over but did not have the patience to do the poornam and of course finished the dosa batter making dosas. So I decided to make bobattu or poli. Well got the outer recipe from a friend (Suman) but havent tried it out yet.

Here is what it is

1 cup wheat flour

1/4 cup maida/all purpose flour

Will update with my results later...