Cooking with Sesame Seeds - Ghiya in Til Gravy

Hello friends,


I am back with one more recipe. This is my husband's one of the favorite curries as this one doesn't use lot of spices. This curry uses all spices raw, no need of frying, roasting etc. This is not exactly a rajasthani recipe so to say, but it is the one my mom taught me and now is my family favorite :)


Went to our Indian Market here close to our house called Artseia and got some veggies. But, now-a-days, I see this veggie very commonly in regular American grocery stores as well, may be more people have started liking and eating it :)


This curry is prepared using Ghiya (or like it is called by many different names in different states - Lauki, Doodhi and Bottle Gourd) and sesame seeds gravy. Once the bottle gourd is boiled, the curry hardly takes 10 min. to prepare. Sounds easy right? It IS easy. If you don't believe me, read further.


I am going to post this for one of the cooking contests called Cooking With Seeds~~Announcing A New Event.
Ghiya in Til Gravy - घीया और तिल की सब्जी (Bottle Gourd in Seasme Gravy)

Ingredients
Ghiya - 2 cups
Sesame Seeds - 1/2 cup
Onions - 1 medium (cut in 6-8 pieces)
Green Chillies - 2-3 (Please adjust based on how much spicy you would like your curry to be)
Garlic - 3-4 cloves
Cumin Seeds - 1 tsp
Rice Flour - 1 tsp
Salt - Per taste
Udad Dal - 1 tsp
Rai (Mustard Seeds) - 1 tsp
Whole Red Chillies - 2-3 (broken into 1-2 pieces each)
Oil - 1 tsp
Preparation

1. Peel and dice ghiya into 1 inch pieces and boil them with salt. Once boiled strain the ghiya but do not throw the water, save it.
2. While it is boiling, take a mixie, to it first add seasame seeds and grind them dry to a powder
3. To the above powder, add roughlu chopped onion, garlic, cumin seeds and green chillies and grind them to a paste by adding little water
4. Now, finally add the rice flour to the paste above and mix it properly.
5. Feel free to add little water if the gravy is too thick.
6. Now, take a pan, add oil
7. Once oil is little hot (about 30 seconds or so), add udad dal, rai and whole red chillies. 
8. Once they start sizzling, add boiled ghiya and fry for a minute.
9. Then add the gravy to it, mix it well (adjust salt as needed), cover it and let it simmer for 3-4 min. Do not leave it unattended and keep stirring every min otherwise, gravy may stick to the pan.
10. Add saved water from above when needed, to not let gravy become too thick.
11. Once the raw aroma of spices is all gone, the curry is ready.

Serving
This curry can be served with roti/paratha or rice equally. So, enjoy with what you like best.


Hope everyone likes it just like we do. And guess what, this is what we have for dinner tonight :)


Good night all. I will be back with new recipe (at least new recipe for my blog...lol)


Till then, take care,
Priya