Lauki Muthia (with rasa)

I love muthias, and again it's one my favorite food not made very often. In the 10 odd years that I have run my kitchen OMO, I have attempted this perhaps twice. Whenever I am at my Mom's, I keep requesting her to make it for every other meal!!! So you will only have to take my recipe at face value. I have blogged about rice muthias (dumplings) here. This recipe is a good, low-oil option for a sumptuous filling meal.

First step of course is to make the muthias (dumplings) and I made them with bottle gourd (lauki). There are a million ways that you can make these dumplings. A number of permutations and combinations ranging from lauki/mooli/courgette/cabbage, types of flours used (millet/wheat/rice/gram flour), other enhancers like greens (methi/palak/coriander) etc. So feel free to experiment and use what is available on hand.

This is how I went about it.

For the dumplings/muthias -
Ingredients - 1 small Lauki (grated), flours - millet (bajra), wheat, besan, chilli-garlic-ginger paste, salt to taste, sugar, asetofida, oil, juice of 1 lemon, a pinch of soda, turmeric powder.
Method  -
1. Grate lauki with skin (if it is tender). Add salt to it, squeeze out the water. Save the water.
2. To the grated bottle gourd, add the flours in the proportion of 2:1:1 (with a spoon).
3. Also add all the other ingredients and any greens you are adding with a spoonful of oil.
4. Kneed to make a dough of medium soft consistency.
5. Now oil your fingers, make parts of the dough into cylindrical rolls and steam them in a steamer for 15 minutes till an inserted knife/toothpick comes out clean.
6. Let them cool and cut into bite-sized pieces. (Note: You can also consume it as a dry snack at this stage after a tadka of mustard seeds, sesame seeds, curry leaves and asetofida.)

For the rasa -
Ingredients - A spoonful of oil, mustard seeds, chilli powder, jeera-coriander powder, a pinch of soda (optional), tamarind pulp (optional), water from grated lauki/normal water.
Method -
1. Heat the oil, crackle the mustard seeds and add the masalas.
2. Add the water and let it boil. You may add tamarind pulp at this stage.
3. To this add the muthias/dumplings till they are cooked.

Note- If you see that your muthias are very hard, then you may need to use the soda for the rasa and only a pinch.

Here is how it looks!

Lauki ka rasa wala muthia