Bottle Gourd Kofta

For Kofta: Wash, peel the skin, cut open, remove the spongy tissue from inside and grate the bottle gourd flesh. Half a bottle gourd should yield about 2 cups of grated flesh. Place the grated bottle gourd in a colander and sprinkle little salt over it. Let it stay for 10 minutes, slowly the gourd will release water. Squeeze tightly to drain all the water from the flesh and keep aside. Boil the pototo with little water and cook thoroughly. Let cool and mash it with your hands or grate and keep aside.

Heat 1 tsp of oil in a small pan, add the ingredients from table-1 chopped shallots, green chilies and ginger. Saute for few minutes, add the drained bottle gourd flesh, chilli powder, ajwain powder and salt. Fry for few seconds and switch off. Let cool completely, add baking soda, garam flour, mashed potato and chopped corainder and mix well to form a thick dough. Shape them into small golf size balls  and keep aside . (This recipe makes 10 to 12 golf ball size koftas)

At this stage you can either choose to deep fry or bake the koftas. If deep frying heat oil in a kadai and fry till golden and keep aside. I've choosen to bake mine and here's how you proceed..

Preheat oven to 400 F, lightly grease a baking sheet, line the koftas leaving little space between each and bake for 35 minutes placing them in the middle rack. Turn them a couple of times inbetween to brown them evenly.

When done try to remove carefully, as quickly lifting out of the sheet could break the koftas. This is how they look after baking. Only problem with baking is its doesn't look evenly browned but will be perfectly cooked through. I'm  though !!

For gravy: Heat 3 tsp oil in a sauce pan, splutter cumin seeds, fry roughly chopped onion, ginger, galic and green chili till lightly brown and add chopped tomatoes. Cook till tender and soft (avoid tomato skin if possible). Swtich off and let cool completely. Grind this along with cashew and poppy seeds to make a thick paste adding little water. Again heat up the pan, add the remaining oil, cook the gravy adding turmeric powder, red chili powder, corainder powder, garam masala and salt. This should take about few minutes. Now add the milk and simmer until it thickens to desired consistency. Add the baked koftas, garnish with coriander leaves and serve hot with paratha or roti.