Lauki Kofta: Bottle Gourd Balls in Gravy

A starring recipe for a party menu: lauki kofta – spiced balls of grated bottle gourd, deep-fried and simmered in a rich tomato gravy. The preparation of lauki kofta takes a bit of planning, and the steps for making the bottle gourd balls can’t be rushed or parallelized – but the end result makes the dish worth every bit of the effort.

Lauki kofta is best made when you can partner with someone to share the load: one works on the gravy while the other does the kofta balls, or both take turns to grate the lauki [be warned: hand-grating this volume of lauki is not for the feeble-armed]).

You Need:

[serves 6-7]

For the kofta balls:

• Lauki (bottle gourd) – 500 grams
• Besan – 1/3 cup
• Red chili powder – a pinch or to taste
• Green chili – 1
• Salt – to taste
• Oil – for deep-frying

For the gravy:

• Garam masala – 1/4 teaspoon
• Coriander powder – 1 tablespoon
• Cumin powder – 1 teaspoon
• Turmeric powder – 1/4 teaspoon
• Red chili powder – 1/2 teaspoon or to taste
• Pepper powder – 1/2 teaspoon or to taste
• Tomatoes – 5
• Onions – 3
• Ginger – 1-inch piece
• Garlic – 6 small cloves
• Dry red chilies – 4
• Oil – 2 tablespoons
• Coriander leaves for garnishing

How To Make Lauki Kofta:

1. Prep the bottle gourd

Peel and grate the bottle gourd.

Mix half a teaspoon of salt into the bottle gourd, and set aside for 20 minutes.

In this time, the grated bottle gourd would have oozed out its juices. Ball up the grated bottle gourd in your palms and press firmly to squeeze all the juices out. Repeat the squeezing after 5 minutes.

Do not thow away the juice extracted from the bottle gourd. Keep it aside to thin out the curry later or to knead chapati dough.

Mix into now-dry grated bottle gourd, a pinch of red chili powder, 1/3 cup of besan, and a finely chopped green chili.

Mash the add-ons with the grated bottle gourd till they form a homogenous dough. The dough should be pliant enough to get shaped into globes easily, without being runny or slushy.

2. Roll and fry the kofta balls

Pluck some dough and roll it into a ball roughly 1-inch in diameter. Repeat till all the dough is used up.

How many koftas would this amount of dough produce? I’d suggest turning the question around to: how many koftas should I make out of this amount of dough? Let the count of people you want to feed serve as guide. Reduce the diameter of each ball to take the count up! I get around 14-16 koftas from 500 grams of bottle gourd.

In a pan or kadhai, heat enough oil for deep-frying. When the oil is hot, slide in the koftas one at a time.

How to check that the oil is hot enough: Place a tiny ball of dough as tester into the hot oil. If the oil sizzles and the ball turns golden in a few seconds, it is hot enough. If the oil shows little signs of excitement when the ball comes in contact, it needs to get hotter. And if the ball chars, the oil is too hot – switch off the heat for a while before frying the koftas.

How to avoid hot oil splashes: Don’t dunk the dough balls into the center of the pan, slide them in gently from the side.

Let the koftas sit in the pan as the hot oil bubbles around them.

When the kofta bottoms become brown (this takes 1-2 minutes), turn the balls around to let the other side cook.

Fry till the koftas are brown all over. Take them out of the oil and place them on absorbent paper.

Repeat till all the koftas are fried.

Time the placing-turning-extracting procedure for each kofta in FIFO order. This way you can manage 4-5 koftas frying together at the same time.

3. Make the gravy

Finely slice two onions.

Heat two tablespoons of oil in a pan. Fry the finely sliced onions on medium-heat till they turn light golden (~10 minutes).

While the sliced onions cook, grind together one onion, an inch-long stick of ginger, 6 small garlic cloves and 4 dry red chilies.

Add the ground paste to the frying onions.

Cook it all together for another ~10 minutes, or till the color deepens to a glistening golden.

Add the dry spice powders: a tablespoon of coriander powder, a teaspoon of cumin powder, a quarter-teaspoon of turmeric powder, red chili powder and pepper powder to taste.

Mix well and continue to cook.

Cook on medium-low heat for another ~5 minutes – the contents of the pan would now be a rich deep brown.

While the onions and spices cook, quarter the tomatoes and place them in the grinder next.

Puree the tomatoes.

Add the tomato puree to the pan.

Mix well and cook on high heat for 5 minutes.

Add three cups of water and bring to a boil.

Stir in salt to taste and garam masala. Set heat to low and simmer the gravy for another ~10 minutes.

4. Put it all together

Place the fried koftas in the gravy. Cook for 3-4 minutes. Cover the pan and let stand for a while so that the koftas soak up the spices.

Lauki kofta curry is ready. Garnish with fresh coriander leaves. Serve hot.

Meal below: jeera rice, dry moong dal, lauki kofta, kairi khatti-meethi chutney.

Notes:

Wondering what else you could do with grated bottle gourd? Try making lauki parathas or lauki raita.