Making a two or three-course dish for the lunch is a part of our household. Though variety rice or one-pot meals come in between, people back at home prefer to have a quick fix meal that has a kulambu, kootu/poriyal, and complete off the lunch with curd and pickle. A wee little bit planning makes this easy for me. I feel this way of preparing lunch allows me to incorporate at least 2 to 3 kinds of vegetables/ beans to it. Being a strict vegetarian, I need to carefully handpick vegetables to get all the goodness from each of them. Some times there are few vegetables that are least looked upon.
One such is the Ashgourd/ Poosanikkai. I have seen their usage least, except some times in sambar. However, we use poosanikkai to make kootu, sambar, raitha, rasavangi. Poosanikkai/Ashgourd Rasavangi is usually an accompaniment that is served with hot rice and ghee. It is different from the kootu and is prepared using freshly grounded spices. This rasavangi can be made with or without toor dal. Here I have not used any dal and just used grounded paste. Do try this rasavangi and enjoy the fresh flavors.
Ingredients
- Tempering Ingredients
- Roast and Grind
Instructions
- Wash, peel and chop the pumpkin into small blocks. Soak the tamarind in hot water and extract tamarind juice from it.
- Heat a pan and drizzle oil in it. Once it is hot, roast the ingredients in the “roast and grind” table. When they are golden brown, transfer to a mixer jar. Allow it to cool down and ground them to a fine paste adding a little water to it.
- Cook the pumpkin pieces in the tamarind juice, along with half a tsp of turmeric powder. Let them cook until they are 3/4th done.
- Once they are par-cooked, add the grounded paste, salt and curry leave to it. Allow it to boil and thicken.
- Heat a pan, add oil along with mustard seeds, urad dal, and curry leaves to it. let them splutter. Add them to the cooked rasavangi. Serve them with hot rice and ghee.
Notes
- Always add the coconut at the last when roasting the dry ingredients. They just need to be tossed and not burnt.
- You can also use brinjal in place of pumpkin to make rasavangi.
- I made this pumpkin rasavangi without toor dal. When you make brinjal rasavangi, you can add a 1/4 cup of cooked toor dal.