Bottle Gourd Rice-Lauki Pulao Recipe-Sorakkai Rice-Healthy One Pot Meal

Bottle gourd is known as sorakkai in Tamil, lauki or doodhi in Hindi and chorakaa in Malayalam. It is commonly used in Indian cooking. You can make a variety of dishes both sweet and savory with bottle gourd like kootu, dal, halwa, kheer etc. This is one of my favorite dish and I make this simple lauki pulao quite often and pair it with a spicy gravy. Today we will learn how to make Bottle gourd pulao/biryani following this easy recipe with step wise pictures.

Bottle Gourd Rice-Lauki Pulao

Prep Time : 10 mins

Cook Time : 15 mins
Serves: 2
Recipe Category: Rice-Lunch-Bottle Gourd
Recipe Cuisine: North Indian
Author:Padhu Sankar

Ingredients needed

   Rice – 1 cup (basmati or regular rice)
   Bottle gourd – 3 cups chopped
   Green peas – 1/3 cup fresh or frozen
   Onion – 1 cup or 2 big onions
   Green chillies – 2 slit
   Ginger garlic paste – 1 tsp
   Turmeric powder – 1/4 tsp
   Coriander powder – 1 tsp
   Salt to taste

For the seasoning

   Oil – 2 tbsp
   Ghee – 2 tsp
   Cumin seeds – 1 tsp
   Whole black peppercorns – 3-4
   Cinnamon – 1/2 inch stick
   Cloves – 3
   Curry leaves – a sprig

For Garnishing

Coriander leaves – 2 tbsp finely chopped

Preparation

Wash and soak rice for 20 minutes in water. Drain the water and keep it ready.

Peel the skin of bottle gourd and chop it into medium sized pieces. Discard the seeds.

Cut onions lengthwise and slit green chillies.

Method

Heat oil + ghee in a pan, add cumin seeds, when it sizzles, add cloves, cinnamon and whole black peppercorns.

Saute for a few seconds and then add onions, green chillies and curry leaves.

Saute until onions turn light brown. Add ginger garlic paste and saute for a few more seconds.

Add coriander powder, turmeric powder and salt needed.

Add chopped bottle gourd, green peas and mix well. Add soaked and drained rice.

Mix well and add 2 cups of water. Check for salt by tasting the water. If required add at this stage.

When water starts boiling, close the cooker and cook on low heat (without the whistle) until the rice is cooked. You can open the cooker in between, mix again and continue to cook until the rice is fully cooked.

Garnish with finely chopped coriander leaves. Fluff it with a fork and serve hot.

Simple and delicious bottle gourd rice/lauki pulao is ready. You can serve it with raita or any spicy gravy. As the pulao is a bit plain, a spicy gravy goes well with it.

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