sorakaya pachadi or bottle gourd chutney can also be made without sesame seeds, ginger and green chilies that is how it is made during summers. sorakaya pachadi goes well with rice, chapathi, paratha, pongal or dosa, I have not tried it with idli. The consistency can be adjusted to your liking. To have it with dosa or chapathi, may be you will have to thin it down by adding a bit of water while grinding, which I haven’t since we accompanied it with rice.
How to make sorakaya pachadi or bottle gourd chutney
- Dry roast red chilies, chana dal and urad dal to light golden, to the same pan add sesame seeds and cumin. Toss them for a minute, sesame seeds should get toasted well without getting browned. Transfer to a wide plate and cool.
- Add a tsp of oil to the same pan, fry green chilies and set side. Add the chopped bottle gourd and fry on a medium flame till the raw smell disappears completely and they wilt off. I did not peel the skin of the sorakaya since it was very tender, didn’t have seeds inside. If there are seeds, i suggest to remove them.
- Transfer the cooled dals to the chutney jar and move the bottle gourd to the plate and cool.
- If you don’t like to use tomato, you can skip this step. Add chopped tomato to the pan and sprinkle turmeric and salt and fry till the tomatoes turn completely mushy. Move this to the plate and cool.
- Powder the dals to a fine powder.
- Scrape off the sides and add cooled bottle gourd, tomato, green chilies, and ginger.
- Make a fine or coarse chutney of the mix. My jar did not fit all the gourd at one time, so just added half of this, blended well then added the rest and blended.
- Heat oil in the same pan, Add mustard cumin, urad dal, broken red chili, garlic. When the dal turns golden, add curry leaves, tamarind paste and hing. Off the stove and add the chutney to the pan and stir. Serve chutney with rice and ghee or with dosa , chapathi. for more chutney recipes, checkginger chutneybeerakaya pachadicapsicum chutneymethi leaves chutneyradish chutney