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A good many people seem to have a mental block against bottle gourd (= Sorakaya, Dudhi, Lauki). I too did have some time ago, but lately the availability of fresh looking and young vegetables at nominal price made me revisit the old classics as well as do little experimentation with bottle gourd.
The following recipe is one of many pappu (dal) arrows from my mother’s recipe quiver. If you do not like eating raw vegetables, then cook them with toor dal. That’s the common practice at my home, and also in many homes in Andhra Pradesh. It works perfectly. See, now I’m addicted to vegetable-dal combinations.
In this dal recipe, the slightly sweet bottle gourd is protein powered with toor dal, flavored with tamarind and chilli, and seasoned with tadka. Definitely, this will ease your way in any bottle gourd battle.
Bottle Gourd (Sorakaya, Dudhi, Lauki) and Toor Dal
Recipe:
¾ cup – toor dal (kandi pappu)
1½ to 2 cups – finely cubed bottle gourd (Sorakaya, Dudhi)
¼ cup – coarsely chopped onion
½ teaspoon each (or to taste)- red chilli powder and turmeric
Marble ball sized tamarindFor popu or tadka:
1 tablespoon ghee or peanut oil
6 each – curry leaves, crushed garlic
Pinch each – cumin, mustard seeds and hing (asafoetida)
Take toor dal in a pressure cooker. Rinse the dal with water. Add the bottle gourd cubes, onion, chilli powder, turmeric and tamarind. Add about one to two cups of water. Mix. Close the lid and steam-cook until toor dal reaches the fall-apart stage. Then add salt, and coarsely mash the ingredients together.
The dal benefits greatly from my daily vitamin dose, I call “popu or tadka“. Let’s heat ghee or oil in a vessel. Add the curry leaves and garlic. Toast them to pale brown, and then add the cumin, mustard seeds and hing. When the seeds start to pop, add the mashed dal to the vessel. Mix and serve the dal with rice or with chapati.
For a true Andhra experience, mix the dal with rice and ghee. Shape into small rounds like shown below. Dip them in pickle or podi. Enjoy.
Sona Masuri Rice mixed with Sorakaya Pappu, and Shaped to a Round ~ A Bharath Experience
– Indira
Sorakaya pappu green chille to chestaamu. But red chille vese yepudu cheyaledu nenu.
Pappu, vuragayi combination chaala baguntundee kadaa!
Comment by Madhavi — January 21, 2008 @ 7:58 pm
This is My all time favorite recipe Indira, we make it little different way with chana dal.
Thank for sharing your recipe ,Will try it soon , I have all Ingredients ready with me :D.
btw, Its Nice to see your hands Indira :).
Picture is too good.
-Pooja
Comment by Pooja — January 21, 2008 @ 8:21 pm
Hi Indira,
Just now posted my favourite recipe of my mom and at seeing you photo of anna mudha , I am taken to the days when my mom fed me like this. Great pic!
Comment by Lakshmiammal — January 21, 2008 @ 8:22 pm
Indira, I came to post a comment about the three green squashes… and here you come with that beautiful amma mudda! You *know* I want one, too… 🙂
Truly, besides the yummy dal, that is a spectacular photo.
Comment by Linda — January 21, 2008 @ 9:45 pm
Hello Indira,
I am a regular reader of your blog. Actually I came across your blog a year ago when I started cooking on my own :)..Since then, this has helped me a lot and also heightened the creativity inside me too.
Thanks a lot for thsi wonderful recipe..Even I am a big fan of “dal”. And photo as usual loooks spectacular.
Keep Blogging 🙂
Regards
Vidya
Comment by Vidya Vaidyanath — January 21, 2008 @ 10:53 pm
Hi Indira,
Nice dal recipe……In my mother’s home, this is a common dal. But my Husband is not a dal guy. So basically I gave up this recipe. You bought back those memories that I had this dal with Avakaya.
Nice hand photo…when we will get an opportunity to see “The Cook” ‘s face. Please grant us that wish.
Bye
Laxmi.
Comment by laxmi — January 21, 2008 @ 11:45 pm
Namasthe Indira garu,
Mee site nundi baaga labham pondina valla lo nenu oka danni..
ide pappu ni pesarapappu tho kuda chesukovachu..pesarapappu tho chesukune konni pappullo idi manchi ruchikaram ayinadi..
ee pappu ni majjiga mirapakayalatho tinte ika maatalu undavu 🙂
Comment by Usha — January 22, 2008 @ 5:33 am
ah we finally see the hand churns all these goodies at mahanadi….can we hope to see a face to go with this hand soon?
Comment by sowhatsnewtoday — January 22, 2008 @ 5:44 am
indira, is this your picture?
http://runrupp.blogspot.com/2008/01/hills.html
Comment by bee — January 22, 2008 @ 8:32 am
A wonderful recipe with Bottle Gourd.
Comment by Mythreyee — January 22, 2008 @ 8:48 am
here is a sightly different variation of sorakkai – silky, very easy to make and completely comfort food. My kids love it.
Cook chopped sorrakai with mung dal, and tadka with hing (perungayam), mustard, jeera, urad dal, 1 chilli. Tadka in 1 tsp coconut oil. The coconut oil adds its own flavor.
Of course, the carb fest takes on new delights with hot steaming rice and a dollop of ghee (nai).
Comment by Ranju — January 22, 2008 @ 9:53 am
Finally …We are able to see the hand behind all these wonderful recipes and presentation. Hope to see your face soon 🙂 or since I live in Seattle, hope to see you personally once 🙂
Comment by Rekha — January 22, 2008 @ 10:02 am
cool picture indira! alaa aa karvepaaku ni teesesi, aa mudda ni notlo pettukovalani anipisthundi…
Comment by Latha — January 22, 2008 @ 10:34 am
Awesome Indira i usually make with chayote squash / seema vankaya and toor dal.. And sorakaya we do make with moong dal called sorakya thiyya pappu and have it with tamarind pickle( chinthakaya pachadi )
Comment by Kalva — January 22, 2008 @ 12:26 pm
Nice recipe, I usually add coconut to the dhal.
Comment by Sarada — January 22, 2008 @ 12:41 pm
Great picture! I am going to make this for my family this week…
🙂
Comment by Diane — January 22, 2008 @ 10:45 pm
Indira gaaru,
Mee annam muddha chusi amma daggariki vellalani korika ekkuva ayipoindi!
Thanks alot!
Vijaya Ranganath
Comment by Vijaya — January 23, 2008 @ 3:33 am
My mouth is open to have it! Like all other visitors I too was carried back to childhood days.
Comment by Nirmala — January 23, 2008 @ 3:51 am
My children, who are removed from AP by 3 generations, love to eat pappu mudda like you made. Food is our connection to our heritage. Thanks to your site, I am trying to revive those connections. Thanks again.
Comment by padmaja — January 23, 2008 @ 6:25 am
Thanks for bringing back loving memories of amma’s dals Indira. Love your pictures and presentation as always.
Comment by isha — January 23, 2008 @ 7:23 am
You should have written “aaa aaaa open your mouth” under that picture! Bcos thats what I did, I opened my mouth when I saw the pic
Comment by InjiPennu — January 23, 2008 @ 9:19 am
Lovely pic and a tasty recipe (tried it out and it was fab as usual). When do we get to see the face of this famous cook ??
Comment by smitha — January 23, 2008 @ 10:02 am
It’s always fun to get a glimpse of our childhood, thank you for contributing to the fun with your memories. And also for sharing your family versions of this recipe.
Bee: Thanks for the plagiarism alert. The photo is mine. I feel defeated and tired to deal with all this.
Padmaja: Glad that Mahanandi could be of help to reconnect with your culinary past. Thanks for your good words.
Comment by Indira — January 23, 2008 @ 7:13 pm
I didn’t know bottle gourd can be used with Toor daal also. Like most, I always made it with Chana daal. I tried it and liked it. Thanks.
Comment by Nidhi — January 25, 2008 @ 7:08 am
Indira, the picture of the morsel in hand is very touching…just as if amma is offering…felt right at home.
Comment by Vani — January 27, 2008 @ 9:18 am
This is such a beautiful photograph.
Comment by Cynthia — January 31, 2008 @ 6:17 pm
Indira? 🙁 What happened?
Comment by Inji Pennu — February 1, 2008 @ 4:45 pm
Wonderful recipe Indira! I tried it with grated cabbage(which i don’t like eating) instead of sorakkaye and the dish tasted awesome. Thankyou indira.
Comment by anithashankar — February 3, 2008 @ 9:44 am
hi Indira,
I tried this recipe yesterday. it came out very well. thanks for the recipe.
Comment by rashmi — February 14, 2008 @ 4:22 pm
Indira recently I tried Zucchini Pappu, by grating zucchini and added sambar powder for the heat. It came out very well. We usually make bottle gourd and ridge gourd pappu, I had a lot of zucchini at home, so thought of trying it and it came out very tasty. You can find the recipe in my blog.
Thank you.
Comment by Madhuram — May 8, 2008 @ 12:39 pm
very good post… True Andhra style..
Comment by gowtham — June 26, 2014 @ 8:45 pm