Mor Kuzhambu

South Indian cuisine is filled with fresh flavours, spices and aroma, I love almost every dish from this region and specially from the state of Tamil Nadu and one of them is this simple and delicious Mor Kuzhambu.

A few moths ago I started following a very talented fellow food blogger, Sai (@southernfoodtrail) (who’s become a good friend) on Instagram, you have to check his profile and one of the dishes he suggested that I should cook was, Mor Kuzhambu. I always make Kuzhambu but my version is quite different than the Tamil one. I absolutely love this preparation and it went really well with rice and rotis. Traditionally this dish is made with vegetables like pumpkin, ash gourd and green banana but since my husband doesn’t eat any of them I made it with bottle gourd and it tasted really good.

Do try this recipe and serve it with rice!

 

Ingredients to grind:

• 1 tbsp pigeon peas lentils (toor dal)soaked in water for 2 hours
• 1 tbsp chana lentils soaked in water for 2 hours
• 1 inch piece of ginger
• ½ cup fresh grated coconut
• 3 green chillies
• 1 dried red chilli

Grind all these ingredients to a fine paste.

Ingredients for cooking:

• 500 ml buttermilk or yoghurt whisked with water
• ½ tsp turmeric powder
• 1 ½ cup bottle gourd cut in chunks you can ash gourd too
• Salt to taste
• 1  tsp oil
• Fresh coriander to garnish

Ingredients for tadka:

• ½ tsp cumin seeds
• 1 tsp mustard seeds
• 1 dried chilli
• A few curry leaves
• ¼ tsp asafoetida
• 1 green chilli slit in half
• ¼ tsp turmeric powder
• 1 tsp oil

Directions:

Heat 1 tsp oil and cook bottle gourd with some salt till it’s tender. Keep it aside.

Mix the buttermilk or yoghurt with the above coconut lentil paste, turmeric and salt. Whisk it well and cook it on low-medium heat stirring it continuously till it comes to rolling boil.

Add the cooked bottle gourd to buttermilk mixture and bring it one more gentle boil.

For tadka, heat oil add mustard seeds and let them splutter. Add in the cumin seeds, green chilli and red chilli, sauté for 1 minute. Add in the turmeric powder, asafoetida and curry leaves.

Pour this tadka on the cooked buttermilk.

Garnish with coriander and serve hot with rice!