It is a common tendency of people here that they pamper their guests whom they respect the most with sumptuous feasts to express their special affinity towards them. So the way food offered to guests is obviously regarded as a scale to measure their closeness. During my childhood days, I often found people getting offended during family functions, particularly weddings, as they felt humiliated at the banquet hall (pandhi) which incidentally became the starting point (place) of most of the family feuds. Nowadays to avoid such unpleasant situations, people hire hosts/ hostesses who give an artificial smile at every guest, treat them all with due respect, and eventually ensure the equality.
Thiruvalluvar, a Tamil sage, wrote about the importance of hospitality 2000 years ago in Thirukkural, the greatest compilation of couplets advocating moral values, which is relevant even today, and I quote one of his couplets as above. He compared the heart of guests with anicham flower (Scarlet Pimpernel) as the guest gets humiliated just like the wildflower closes up in bad weather.
Nevertheless, we all enjoy the pampering at every stage of our life showered by our relatives when we visit them. Women in our family usually overindulge us by saying “innum konjam” (meaning little/few more) while serving us their specialty dishes. Bottle gourd adai (savory pancakes) is one of my aunts’ signature dishes, she never lets us leave her home without indulging in her soft spicy sorakkai adai served with creamy tangy avial.
Bottle gourd recipes:
Every Siddha/ Ayurveda practitioner praises humble bottle gourds to the skies for their excellent detoxification properties. It is one of the most commonly available vegetables here and may be used for making juice, or added into a bowl of salad, or used for making thayir pachadi, kootu, sabzi, curry, etc.
Bottle gourd is also added into adai batter for making it soft & spongy. Generally, I blitz all the ingredients in one shot to prepare my batter, but my aunt gradually adds every ingredient into the wet grinder at different stages to get the perfect texture both for crispy adai & also for soft adai. Now I followed my aunt’s recipe to a T, and prepared bottle gourd adai as below:
Bottle gourd Adai Recipe
Ingredients:
| Idli rice (parboiled rice) | 1 cup (approx. 200 grams) |
| Bengal gram (chickpeas) | 1/2 cup |
| Black gram | 1/4 cup |
| Red chillies | 10 |
| Ginger | 1″ |
| Diced bottle gourd | as desired |
| Shallots (sambar vengayam) | 200 grams |
| Chopped coriander leaves | as desired |
| Chopped coconut | as desired |
| Curry leaves | a few sprigs |
| Turmeric powder | 1 tap |
| Asafoetida powder | 1/4 tsp |
| Salt | 1 tsp |
| Coconut oil for cooking adai |
Bottle gourd Adai making:
- Wash & soak rice & Bengal gram together for 3 hours.
- Rinse & soak black grams separately for 1 hour.
- Turn on the wet grinder and add broken red chillies & chopped ginger into it.
- Add diced bottle gourd and then add soaked rice & Bengal gram little by little enabling to smash the bottle gourd, ginger & red chillies & grind them along with rice.
- Now add all the remaining rice & Bengal gram and let the grinder run for few minutes (5-7 min).
- Finally add the soaked black gram into the grinder.
- Turn off the wet grinder within 3-4 minutes before the batter becomes smooth.
- Transfer the batter to a canister.
- Add chopped shallots, coconut, coriander leaves, curry leaves, turmeric powder, asafoetida powder & salt into the batter and mix well.
- Pour the water used for rinsing drum into the batter to get the desired consistency.
- Now heat a cast iron griddle in medium flame and prepare adai as shown below.
- Serve hot sorakkai adai with butter, avial & karuppatti (palm jaggery) or vellam (cane jaggery).
- Refrigerate the remaining batter immediately after use (avoiding the fermentation to take place) for 24-36 hours.
Tips:
- If we add large quantity of bottle gourd, adai becomes too soft that it gets stuck to the griddle. I used about one-third of bottle gourd for 200 grams of rice.
- When we grind soaked black gram along with rice, it changes the texture of adai, so my aunt adds them only at the end as coarsely ground black gram lends a delicious texture to adai. You can notice small chunky black gram in the adai shown below.
- Generally adai goes well with sour avial and mor-kuzhambu, so when we make avial for adai we used to add sour curd lavishly to make it even more tangy.
You receipe makes my mouth craving for them…
Thanks. 🙂
Even receipe need every ingredient in optimum way…
So true. 🙂
Lol
I’m surely going to try this next time I make Adai. Thanks a lot, Megala, for this wonderful recipe.
Glad to hear this, thank you.
You are welcome. 🙂
You are welcome, Megala 🙂
love this dish and would like to try it out!
Thank you!
Yummy!
Thanks.
You’re welcome ?
My mouth is literally drooling – sadly, I’m just bout to go to bed otherwise I’d make these! 😉
Hahaha! 🙂 Thank you so much for stopping by.
This is very really unique helpful information. keep it up. Thank you so much!
Thanks so much. I’m sorry for the late reply, don’t know how I missed to see this.
Nice and tasty!
Thank you!
love that: part::
“we used to add sour curd lavishly…”
???
Thank you! 🙂
That’s a very healthy adai recipe, I make adai with a whole lot of veggies like carrots, cabbage and peas, but have not yet tried with bottle gourd. Will have to try this delicious version! ?
Oh! But I never tried it with those veggies you have mentioned here, I will keep this in my mind when I make adai next time.
Thank you so much for sharing healthy tips.
You’re most welcome!
This looks delicious!
Thank you!
I can’t imagine any guest turning away food this wonderful!
Yes, it is impossible. 🙂 Thank you so much.
It looks delicious! I usually use bottle gourd in soup. Today I learn to use it in such a nice pancake~ Thank you! Can’t wait to try the recipe!
Oh! Thanks!
Wow, looks delicious!?
Thanks!
This looks so good! Look at that color…perfectly cooked!
Thank you!
Tangy and tasty!!
Yes, thanks!
Truely said, no where in the world as we treat them in India with respect and next only to God!! Good way of sneaking lauki in kid’s meals.Very nutritious adai recipe .
Yes, our ancestors had the wisdom to know that it is possible to lead a peaceful life only when we respect the people around us.
Thanks Swati.
(EN) You added something special this time to something already delicious: a so ancient text . I really appreciate you mentioned the Thirukkural.?
(IT) Hai aggiunto qualcosa di speciale a qualcosa di già delizioso: un testo così antico. Apprezzo molto che hai menzionato il Thirukkural ?
I’m so glad that you liked this post, and I think you are a hyper polyglot, knowing two languages that are worlds apart. 🙂
Thank you so much.
This looks wonderful and healthy.
Yes, it is. Thanks so much.
Interessantes Rezept
Your comments make me to learn few words in German. 🙂 Thank you.
I could eat three of these right now. They look so yummy! I had never heard about Bottle gourd before. Now, I am so curious to try this vegetable. Wonder if I can get some here in Quebec? I”ll look for it. Thanks Megala. I love it when you give us information about the ingredients and your culture.
I’m so glad to hear this. 🙂 Thanks much, Dominique, for your time.
My pleasure! Hope that your day is going well so far Megala. ?
These look wonderful and healthy! ?
Thank you!
Perfect spicy adai for rainy season!!
Yes, thanks!
That’s really something interesting adai with bottlegourd, we too make adai (we call it Attu) but never added bottlegourd. This is one of the best way to have bottlegourd in the form of adai??
Absolutely! 🙂 Thanks much.
Healthy and tasty ?
Yes, it really is. 🙂 Thank you.
Aadai is always my favorite, never knew it can be done with bottle guard very tasty and healthy recipe with your special touch of thirukkurrall
Ah! I guess it would have taken you to your school days. 🙂 Thanks Subbashini!
Yum! They look so much more healthy than an American pancake!
Glad you like these savory pancakes. Thank you!
Megala, I absolutely loved your aunt’s recipe with the sequence of grinding etc.. will definitely try it!
Thanks so much for sharing.
Pleasure is all mine! 🙂 Thanks much for reading this post.
Oh, family feuds over hospitality, how strange we are eh? I remember happened pretty often in our family too when I was a little girl ?
These savory pancakes looks so delicious! I’ve never tried bottle gourd but must be really delicious ? ?
Yes, it sounded strange to me when I was young. It is really hard to explain the human emotions even today. 🙂
Thanks much, Ribana.
Very true! ? We are crazy people ?
Love these savory pancakes ?
Thank you! 🙂
One of my neighbors grows these on amazing trellises. I can see them as I take my morning walks. Now I know what delicious recipes they might be making with them.
Yes, they grow on beautiful vines with huge leaves and papery white flowers.
I used to chew the raw vegetable just like a cucumber during my childhood days. 🙂
Thank you so much!
I make the plain lentil ones….adding bottle gourd is such a wonderful idea. Thanks Megala!
You are most welcome! I’m so glad to share one of our heirloom recipes here. 🙂
Beautifully explained as always, Megala and such nice recipes from Bottle gourd. Too good and sounds delicious.
Thank you!
Welcome ?? ?
Welcome Megala ?? ?
Healthy pancakes! I would like to eat those.
Yes, they are delicious & nutritious. Thank you.
That’s great… sounds delicious!
Thank you!
Megala, what a lovely recipe. In Gujarat, we make bottle gourd theplas or grated bottle gourd mixed in the dough with spices and then cooked into a roti, but I must try these pancakes!
I like methi thepla, but I never heard of bottle gourd thepla, and that sounds wonderful.
Thanks much for the inspiration.
You proved that your photography skills are matching with your culinary skills…. lovely flowers, Megala!
Aw! I’ve used those images of anicham flower from Google. 🙂
Thanks, Indira, for stopping by.
Wow Megala, this adai looks scrumptious! I too use bottle gourd to make Dhirde (pancakes). It is such a healthy and versatile vegetable!
Yes, our adai is similar to marathi dhirde, and adding bottle gourd makes this dish even more healthy & palatable.
Thank you.
This looks nice. ? Will try it some day. We make dosa out of snake gourd seeds. It’s usually had in place of appalams. (Not very crispy but tastes good with rice and curd or sambar). ?
Oh! Interesting! 🙂 Never heard of this before, will definitely check this out.
Thank you so much.
I love the information you share before the recipe.. i will definitely try out this..
Thank you, Shilpa!
This recipe makes me feel hungry ? it makes me nostalgic for a similar Korean style savory pancake that my mother made during my childhood. Thanks for sharing it.
Oh! Thats nice. I’m happy that this post evokes your childhood memories. 🙂
Thank you!
You’re welcome, I think it’s interesting how cuisines will have similar dishes ?
Looks delicious Megala! Funny you remember family feuds starting over hospitality slights~ so much pressure!
Yes, it really puts pressure on the hosts to keep their guests satisfied.
Thanks so much.