Thursday 13 December 2012

Vegetable of the Week - The Dudhi

This week's vegetable of the week is the dudhi, or bottle gourd, which is a very satisfying name to say. Bottle gourd. Try it.
 

I'm abandoning the 'eat it first, research it later' idea, as some things like potatoes you shouldn't eat raw, and I don't want to precipitate some sort of digestive disaster. Also, to give the candidates a fair shot at a good review, I should prepare them in a recommended way. Broccoli is excellent in a stir fry but terrible in risottos. It would be sad to review risottoed broccoli and disuade anyone from such a very enjoyable vegetable.

Therefore, I found the dudhi and discovered it is a member of the squash family, and all the recipes for it were curries. I chose Lauki Chana Daal Subzi, or 'Bottle gourd and lentil curry.' From here:

http://maayeka.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/lauki-chana-daal-subzi-bottle-gourd-and.html


On chopping, it resembles a courgette inside. After chopping, the pieces oozed sappy watery stuff.


Ingredients....


Ta da!! I really liked it. The dudhi is a bit firmer than courgette and takes up the spices nicely. This is apparently an ayurvedic recipe and is supposed to make lots of things better. It certainly feels very nourishing and healthy. Famie and I enjoyed it. I decided to get its goodness into Zappa so I took some over to his work. He said, 'I think we look for different things in a lunch, Em.'
I said, 'Really?'
He said, 'Yeah, I go more for 'yum yum'!'

Well, I'm just glad I got some good food into him instead of a chicken mayo and bacon baguette from the sandwich van. I'm definitely making this again.

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