Chupa Rustam: Stuffed Bottle Gourd

The biggest achievement of my cooking experiments is sikander’s increasing enthusiasm for trying out something new in the kitchen. Today for dinner I was planning a plain bottle guard sabzi or soup; but Sikander wanted to try something different, so we went on the Internet. Most of the recipes we found required deep frying, which we weren’t too keen on. Then I found this stuffed bottle gourd recipe on Tarla dalal’s page.

Looked interesting but a bit involved and had it not been for Sikander, I wouldn’t have taken this up today. In fact, I had a little back pain tonight so I was just more of a helper .

I think this was our best shot-in-the-dark in kitchen till date! A different recipe was called chupa rustam  on the site, but I think this one deserves the name . Here’s our adaptation of the recipe:

Stuffed Bottle Gourd

Preparation Time: 20 mins| Cooking Time: 40 mins| Serves 2

1 bottle gourd (~250 gms)
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp oil

Filling
1 medium sized potato (boiled and mashed)
1/4 cup onion, finely chopped

1 green chilli, chopped
1 tsp ginger-garlic paste
2 tbsp chopped coriander
1/2 tsp dried mango powder
1/2 tsp coriander powder
1/2 tsp chilli powder
1 tsp chaat masala

salt to taste

Gravy
3 medium tomatoes , chopped
1 small stick cinnamon
3 cloves

1 green chilli, chopped
1 tsp ginger-garlic paste
2 tsp coriander  powder
1 tsp red chilli powder
1/2 tsp garam masala
1 tsp sugar
2 tsp oil
salt to taste

2 tbsp chopped coriander  for garnish

• Peel the gourd, cut it into quarters and pressure cook it with 1 cup of water and the salt. Pressure cook for 1 whistle and cool.
• Scoop out the inside pulp, discard it and keep the scooped gourd aside. Be careful while scooping to not break the outer shell
• Stuff the scooped out bottle gourd shell with the filling mixture and keep aside.
• Heat the oil in a non-stick pan and shallow fry the stuffed gourd till brown spots appear on all the sides. Remove and keep aside on a kitchen towel.

• For the gravy, heat the oil in a non-stick pan, add the cinnamon and cloves and fry for 1 minute.
• Add the tomato, chilli, ginger-garlic paste, coriander powder, red chilli powder, garam masala, sugar and salt and cook stirring continuously till the mixture leaves oil from the sides.
• Add ¼ cup of water and bring to a boil. Puree using a blender.
• Keep aside.
• Cut the stuffed gourd into 1’’ thick slices and place them on a serving dish.
• Pour the hot gravy on the side.
• Garnish with coriander and serve hot with rotis.