A delicious dish for people who don’t like bottle gourd. That poor healthy vegetable is made to go through this process of frying and hence lost most of its nutrition value. But unbelievably these kofta’s are big favorite in my family.

My blogger friend Mansi Desai has a healthier version of these, which is another alternative to making these kofta’s. The Link to her recipe is Doodhi Kofta Curry

Serves: 4 persons

Cooking time: about 40 minutes Preparation Time: 1 hour

Ingredients

For Koftas

• 1 big bottle gourd finely grated
• ¼ cup of gram flour
• 1 teaspoon cumin powder
• Salt to taste
• Vegetable/Sunflower oil for deep frying

Method

Heat about 2 cups of oil in a wok. The amount of oil you use for frying the kofta’s depends on the size of the wok. So use your judgment in this regard. You need to be able to deep fry the kofta’s in the oil.

Mix all the ingredients and divide into 12 portions. Fry them as soon as the mixture is made. The more you let them sit in the more water they will give out. Don’t worry of they are mushy, once you put them in hot oil, they will bind and hold themselves together. If you want you could add more gram flour to make it less mushy.

Once the oil is hot, slowly put a few kofta’s at a time for frying.

Fry them on medium heat and take them out when they turn brown in color.

Drain in a paper napkin. This can be prepared and refrigerated for a few days and added to the gravy later when made.

For the Gravy

• 1 cup onion
• 3-4 cloves of garlic
• 2 teaspoons chopped ginger
• 1 cup chopped tomatoes
• 1 teaspoon turmeric powder
• 1 teaspoon chili powder
• 1 teaspoon garam masala powder
• 1 tablespoon sugar/honey
• ½ cup yogurt
• 2 tablespoons chopped coariander
• 2 tablespoons vegetable/sunflower oil
• Salt to taste

Method

Make a fine paste of onion, garlic and ginger together.

Puree tomatoes until smooth.

Heat oil in a frying pan/wok; Sauté the onions, garlic and ginger paste until cooked and raw smell almost gone, about 2-3 minutes. Add turmeric powder, garam masala powder, chilli powder and saute for a couple of minutes.

Add Tomatoes, yogurt, sugar and salt to taste and simmer for about 10 minutes.

The tip is to add the kofta’s into the makhani gravy just before serving. Stir gently to make sure the kofta’s don’t break.

Do not boil the kofta’s in the gravy as they are liable to break.

Enjoy the kofta’s with hot phulka’s or any Indian bread of your choice.

Filed under: North Indian

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