Courgette or Bottle Gourd or Marrow Koftas, As A Snack Or A Curry
Lauki or Doodhi or Marrow ke Kofte
Mamta Gupta
These koftas are easy to make and taste nice by themselves, as starters, or in a curry sauce. This recipe can be used for making koftas from courgette (zucchini), carrots or any other vegetable of choice.
Serve 6-8
Edited June 2018
Ingredients
500 gm. Lauki (bottle gourd), peeled. If using courgettes, there is no need to peel. You can also use marrow (large courgette)
1 medium to large onion, peeled and halved
1 inch piece of ginger, peeled
2 garlic cloves, peeled
2-3 green chillies (adjust to taste), finely chopped
3-4 tbsp. gram flour or besan to bind (see step 2 of the recipe)
Salt to taste
1/2 tsp. Garam Masala
Oil for deep frying.
Instructions
Grate Lauki (bottle gourd), onion, ginger, garlic, chillies together in an electric food processor or by hand.
Pick handfuls of this mix and gently squeeze out water by pressing between two palms. If you leave all the eater in, you have to add a lot of besan, which make the koftas firm, when they should really be soft.
Place in a bowl and add sifted gram flour/ besan, salt and garam masala, mix well with a fork, until the mix looks well bound. You may need to add a little more gram flour than stated in the recipe.
Heat oil to just before smoking point. Frying in very hot oil will leave the koftas undercooked inside.
Place one heaped tablespoon of the mix on one wetted or oiled palm, roll it into a small ball.
Drop each kofta gently into the hot oil.
After a few minutes, turn them gently once or twice with a spoon or fork.
Fry until deep brown on all sides. Drain on an absorbent paper.
For a snack, serve hot with Green Mango Chutney or Imli Chutney or Tomato Ketchup.
To serve as a curry, make a Curry Sauce of choice. There are other curry sauce recipe on this website. When all koftas are made, I swirl a little water around in the bowl of kofta mix and add that to curry sauce. The left over besan in it thicken the sauce and the bits of bottle gourd add to the texture of the sauce.
Add koftas to the sauce just before serving, otherwise they may break up if they have too long to soak. Heat through.
Sprinkle garam masala and garnish with coriander leaves.
Serve hot with Chapatti or Plain Paratha.