Pooshanikka morekootu - Wintermelon buttermilk stew

That's a mouthful to say.

Ashgourd or Wintermelon is this beautiful white vegetable from the pumpkin family. It's very mild in flavour by itself. I've seen recipes for smoothies using raw wintermelon with some lemon juice and ginger.

This particular morekootu which translates to a stew made with buttermilk and steamed vegetable (in this case the wintermelon), is one of my favourite dishes with this vegetable. It's pretty light, refreshing and extremely healthy.  It's typically served with lentil crepes or adai/pesarat or any kind of mixed rice.

Ingredients:

-  2 lbs Wintermelon
-  1 Tbsp raw rice
-  3 Tbsp grated coconut (fresh or frozen)
-  6-8 curry leaves
-  1 cup buttermilk
-  1 tsp cumin seeds (jeera)
-  1/2 tsp mustard seeds
-  1 green chilli (serrano pepper) split in half

Directions:

1. Cut the melon into small bite size chunks.. 1" cubes.

2.  Cook the melon in about a cup of water. Yes, I said just one cup, because the melon is so full of water that it doesn't need a whole lot to cook.

3.  Soak the rice, jeera,  green chilli in about 1/4 cup of water for 15 minutes.

4.  In a blender, pulse the buttermilk, coconut and the mixture from step 3 and some salt.

5.  Add the blended buttermilk mixture to the pot with the cooked wintermelon.

6.  Let it gently simmer for 5 minutes and turn off the heat.

7.  For the Tadka/seasoning- add jeera, mustard seeds and curry leaves to a tbsp of canola oil.