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Kofta is a family of meatball or meatloaf dishes found in South Asian, Middle Eastern, Balkan, and Central Asian cuisine. In the simplest form, koftas consist of balls of minced or ground meat - usually beef, chicken, lamb, or pork - mixed with spices and/or onions.

Lauki Kofta also known as Bottle-gourd Kofta is a vegetarian dish quite popular in India. This is one of my favourites and I learned this from my mother. She is a great cook.

It is a two stage cooking - the first stage required deep frying of Koftas in oil and in the second stage gravy is made by grinding onions, tomatoes, green chillies, garlic and ginger and cooking with Indian spices. Then adding and cooking the fried koftas in gravy.

You can also bake the koftas if you don't want to deep fry them. But I prefer the deep fried version.

It is usually served cooked in a spicy curry/gravy and are eaten with boiled rice or a variety of Indian breads.

Ingredients

Preparation

For the koftas

• Take a lauki (bottle gourd). Wash lauki properly and then peel it and grate it.

• Squeeze the grated lauki to remove excess water.

• Add salt, gram flour (besen), ajwain and red chilli powder to the grated lauki and mix it well.

• If the mixture is quite watery you may add more gram flour (besen) accordingly. Mix well after adding.

• Make small round shaped balls or patties or you may make any random shape from the mixture.

• Heat sufficient oil in a kadai or in a pan to deep-fry the koftas. Fry them in small batches till they are golden brown from all the sides and crisp on the outside.​ Stir occasionally.

• Drain them out on an absorbent paper so that the paper absorb the extra oil. Keep them aside. Fry all the koftas in the same way.

• Take onion, tomatoes, ginger, garlic and green chilies in a blender or grinder and make a smooth puree. You may add a little water to make a puree.

• Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a non stick pan. When the oil becomes hot, add cumin seeds and let them crackle.

• Now add already prepared puree into it and mix well.

• Add salt, turmeric powder, garam masala, coriander powder into it and mix well.

• Cook it and stir occasionally till all water evaporates and it turns into a thick paste.

• Now add water as per the gravy you want to make and bring it to a boil.

• Lower the flame and simmer for five minutes.

• Add the deep fried koftas into the gravy and cook it for 3-4 minutes. Stir gently so that the koftas don't break.

• You may garnish it with finely chopped coriander leaves or with chopped green onions.

• Serve it hot either with steamed rice or Indian bread (roti or chapati).