White Pumpkin Raita
Ingredients
- 2 cups White pumpkin grated
- 2 cups Thick curd
To be grounded raw:
- 3 Green chilli
- 1/3 cup Coconut grated
- 1 handful Fresh coriander leaves
For the seasoning:
- 3/4 tsp Mustard
- 1 pinch Hing*/asafetida** – pinch
- Curry leaves
Instructions
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Peel, remove the seeds and grate pumpkin. Add salt and keep it aside for 10-15 minutes. Then squeeze out the excess water and keep it aside. Do not waste the water, use it to prepare buttermilk.
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Grind chilli, coconut and coriander leaves to a fine paste.
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Beat curd lightly, then add grated pumpkin and the grounded paste. Mix well.
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Heat a teaspoon of oil, add mustard seeds, when it splutters, add hing, curry leaves and pour it over the raita.
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Pumpkin raita is ready to be served with rice or parathas***.
Recipe Notes
* Wikipedia: Hing or Heeng is the Hindi word for Asafetida
**Wikipedia: Asafoetida is aspice used as a digestive aid, in food as a condiment, and in pickling. It plays a critical flavoring role in Indian vegetarian cuisine by acting as an umami enhancer.Used along with turmeric, it is a standard component of lentil curries such as dal and sambar, as well as in numerous vegetable dishes, especially those based on potato and cauliflower. Kashmiri cuisine also uses it in lamb/mutton dishes such as Rogan Josh. It is sometimes used to harmonize sweet, sour, salty, and spicy components in food. The spice is added to the food at the time of tempering. Sometimes dried and ground asafoetida (in very small quantities) can be mixed with salt and eaten with raw salad. In its pure form, it is sold in the form of chunks of resin, small quantities of which are scraped off for use. The odor of the pure resin is so strong that the pungent smell will contaminate other spices stored nearby if it is not stored in an airtight container. Many commercial preparations of asafoetida use the resin ground up and mixed with a larger volume of other neutral ingredients, such as gum arabic, wheat flour, rice flour and turmeric. The mixture is sold in sealed plastic containers with a hole that allows direct dusting of the powder. Asafetida odour and flavour become much milder and much less pungent upon heating in oil or ghee. Sometimes, it is fried along with sautéed onion and garlic.
***Wikipedia: Parathas are one of the most popular unleavened flat breads in the India part of the Indian Subcontinent and they are made by baking or cooking whole wheat dough on a tava, and finishing off with shallow frying.Parathas are thicker and more substantial than chapatis/rotis and this is either because, in the case of a plain paratha, they have been layered by coating with ghee or oil and folding repeatedly using a laminated dough technique
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