Sneha's Recipe: Sponge Gourd

Today’s recipe is one of the simplest sabzi/bhaji that one learns in East Indian cuisine. This is my Mom's recipe. It is just a method sweating the onions in a pan, add the ghosali a letting them cook together. There a two type of these gourds, one is a ridge gourd (turai or dodka )which we East Indians call it shirali ghosali, because of the ridge that this vegetable has.
The other one is the thel ghosali/sponge gourd which is plain, although both taste the same when cooked, just the variety changes.

This vegetable goes by many names, ridged gourd, lufa, turai, turia, beerakaya, or peerkangaai, smooth luffa.

You can prepare this dish when you crave for something really simple. It tastes great with chapatti/hand breads (love the sweetness of the vegetable that goes so well with these flat breads) and also with rice or fish/meat curry.

Serves 3
Ingredients
650 Grams Thel Ghosali/Ridged Gourd
1 Large Onion finely sliced
1 Tablespoon Bottle Masala
½ Teaspoon Sea Salt or to taste
3 Tablespoons Oil
Method

Wash and peel the gourd, cut the gourd vertically and then make thin slices out of it.

Heat oil in pan/kadai, add the onions and fry them for a minute. Place a lid on low flame let it soften for 3 minutes. After that you will see the onions are translucent ( this give the bhaji a sweet taste). Now add the ghosali and stir fry it on high flame for a minute or two. Cover with a lid and reduce the flame to low for 5 minutes. Now you will see it has released all its moisture/water. Open the lid and give it a stir, let it cook on medium low flame without the lid for 10 to 15 minutes or till the water nearly evaporates.

Now you can see the water has nearly evaporated, add the bottle masala and salt, give it a good mix, cover with a lid on medium low flame let it cook till the spice marries together with the ghosali for about 4 -5 minutes.
Open and you will see oil has started to seperate give a final mix.