Suraikkai Koottu

Suraikkai / Bottle gourd is such a good cooling agent, it can be taken often during this hot summer. It helps in weight loss also. We can prepare a variety of dishes with Bottle gourd. Today lets see a simple kootu with suraikkai.

Ingredients:

Suraikkai - 1 medium sized
Moong Dal - 1/4th of the cut quantity of bottle gourd
Green chilli - 2
Grated Coconut - 3 tsp
Jeera - 1 tsp
Small Onion - 1 peeled
Garlic - 1 peeled, minced, for seasoning
Onion - finely chopped, for seasoning
Curry leaves - few for seasoning
Mustard, jeera - few for seasoning
Corriander leaves - few for garnish
Curry leaves - few for garnish

Preparation Time: 20 mins

Method:

Cut the bottle gourd into small pieces after peeling the skin. Wash moong dal and boil both in a pressure cooker. Let it whistle twice.

Now grind together coconut, chilli, small onion, jeera into a fine paste.

Once the bottle gourd and dal are cooked well, heat oil in a pan. Add few mustard seeds and jeera. Once they splutter, add finely chopped garlic and onion. When they turn brown in color, add the cooked suraikkai and dal to the pan. Now add the coconut paste and adjust salt. Let it boil for 5 mins. At this time, the raw smell of jeera will be gone, Add few corriander leaves and curry leaves. Switch off the flame.

Simple Suraikkai kootu is now ready. It goes very well with Kaara kulambu and rasam.