Mahanandi

Living in Consciousness ~ Indi(r)a’s Food and Garden Weblog

Silk Squash Curry Burgers (Neti Beerakaya Kura)

We went to Strip district, last Saturday. This downtown wholesale produce market is where people go to hangout on a weekend morning in Pittsburgh. Full of ethnic groceries, wholesale organic produce, fresh meat and fish shops, roadside stalls, bakeries, cheese and coffee shops, eateries, difficult to find free parking space and big crowds; The atmosphere is usually like a carnival, more so on last Saturday, because of Steelers Super Bowl. We saw Polamalu wigs, face paintings, jam packed stalls carrying Steelers memorabilia. There were impromptu parades and street dancers, dancing to Steelers songs. The mood was boisterous and we had a fun time watching the spectacle.

We also did some grocery shopping; we bought Indian vegetables at ‘Lotus’, the big Chinese grocery shop in Strip distrcit. Because of Chinese New Year, the shop was buzzing with people. Crowds everywhere. One vegetable I bought after a long time was silk squash (or ‘neti beerakaya’ in Telugu), the smooth and silky cousin of rugged ridge gourd. Similar in taste to ridge gourd and its distant cousin zucchini, silk squash is great in curry avatar. This is very easy to prepare and is an Andhra variety.

Silk Squash (Neti Beerakaya in Telugu)

Recipe:
(For two, for 4 mini burgers)

1 medium sized, fresh and firm silk squash (neti beerakaya)
(Lightly scrape the outside skin, wash and cut into bite sized pieces)
1 onion – finely chopped
2 green chillies – finely chopped
½ tsp each of coconut powder and turmeric
¼ tsp salt

Popu or tadka ingredients – 1 tsp each cumin, mustard seeds, minced garlic and curry leaves

I also added half cup of bean sprouts for little bit of crunch and to boost the nutritional value.

Silk Squash, Red Onion, Green Chilli and Bean Sprouts

Preparation:

In a wide pan, heat one teaspoon of peanut oil, toast the popu ingredients, add and saute onion and green chillies first, then add the silk squash. Cover and cook for about 5 minutes until the squash pieces soften. Remove the lid, stir in turmeric, salt and coconut powder, cook for few more minutes. Just before switching off the heat, I added bean sprouts.
This Andhra style curry tastes great with rice and dal or with chapatis.

This weekend, in addition to vegetables, I also bought some fresh dinner rolls (buns) for pav bhaji. With some of those rolls, I prepared mini burgers today, for lunch. I sliced the roll (bun) into half, removed little bit of white bread from insides (to make space for curry filling), and pan grilled them for few minutes, on each side. Then filled them with silk squash curry. For Vijay, I also made an egg-white omelet for his burgers. The whole preparation took me about 20 minutes and the curry burgers tasted awesome.

Silk Squash Curry Burgers (One with Omelte and the second one no omelet)

Silk Squash Curry Burgers ~ our lunch today and my entry to the Stephanie’s ARF Event.

Posted by Indira©Copyrighted in Beerakaya-Neti(Silk Squash) (Tuesday February 7, 2006 at 2:55 pm- permalink)
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