Lauki Koftas is a common dish and is prepared in every household. My mom would made lauki kofta once in two weeks and as a kid, I never liked lauki. Back then, just the smell of lauki was enough to make me lose my appetite but now lauki koftas are my favorite … I guess tastes evolve. 🙂 Today I am sharing a healthy version of lauki ke kofte – kofta curry prepared with non fried koftas. Vegetarian lauki/bottle gourd dumplings are tossed in onion-tomato based rich gravy and can be enjoyed with hot chapatis or serve it over bed of hot rice. Bottle gourd is a blessing in disguise full of nutrients and low in calorie and by frying them we are adding extra calories to them. Prepared with a brush of oil, these koftas are super easy to make and are healthy. I like round koftas and appe pan takes care of that. Just drop a tablespoon of kofta mixture in the appe mold and they will come out round and perfectly brown, so soft and chewy.
Bottle gourd has a high water content and the trick to perfect koftas is to squeeze all that liquid out from the grated lauki . Once all the liquid is removed- 2 cups of grated lauki will look like 3/4 cup of lauki. Add besan and curd – curd is the secret ingredient which keeps the koftas soft. If the mixture is already too watery, please do not add curd to the mixture – skip this part and continue without curd. Adding curd will throw the whole recipe off balance. Shape koftas and either fry them or cook them in appe pan. Set them aside. Next step would be to prepare the gravy – no onion-tomato masala on hand, follow the recipe here. Cooking time mentioned below is with appe pan koftas and already prepared onion-tomato masala. But if you were to prepare masala from the scratch than cooking time will vary. DID YOU NOW YOU COULD ADJUST YOUR SERVING SIZE BELOW – CLICK ON 6 TO REDUCE OR INCREASE YOUR SERVING SIZE.