Andhra style dal known as Sorakaya Pappu is a every day dal dish made using bottle gourd and dal. It is served with rice and ghee. It also goes well with roti or chapati.

Recipe Snapshot

  • Prep time: 10 minutes
  • Cook time: 20 minutes
  • Total time: 30 minutes
  • Yield: 3 · 3 people
  • Category: Main Course
  • Cuisine: Andhra

Ingredients

  • ¼ cup toor dal (or kandi pappu)
  • ½ cup moong dal (or pesara pappu)
  • 2 cups bottle gourd (or lauki or sorakaya or anapakaya)
  • Salt (as needed)
  • 2 tbsp tamarind ((adjust to suit your taste))
  • 1 to 2 tbsp Oil (or ghee as needed)
  • 1 sprig curry leaves
  • ½ tsp cumin (or jeera)
  • ½ tsp mustard
  • Pinch asafoetida (or hing)
  • 1/8 tsp turmeric (or haldi)
  • 3 green chilies (slit)
  • 1 red chili (broken)
  • ¼ tsp ginger (grated (optional))
  • 1 clove garlic (crushed)

Method

Preparation

  1. Wash dal and add 1 ½ cups water to a pressure cooker or a pot.
  2. Wash and peel the skin off from sorakaya. Cube them. Add them to the cooker or pot. If you wish you can add green chilies too.
  3. On a medium flame, pressure cook for 2 whistles if cooking directly in the cooker or for 3 to 4 whistles, if you are cooking in a bowl and placing it in the cooker. The dal and bottle gourd has to be cooked until soft.
  4. When the pressure goes off, add salt and mash the dal with the back of the ladle. Set aside.
  5. While the dal cooks soak tamarind in ¼ cup hot water. Squeeze the tamarind pulp. Set this aside.

Making sorakaya pappu or lauki dal

  1. Heat a pan with ghee or oil. Add mustard, cumin and red chili.
  2. When they splutter, add grated ginger, crushed garlic, green chili and then the curry leaves. Fry till you begin to get a good aroma.
  3. Add hing and turmeric.
  4. Pour the tamarind water to a filter and add it to the pan. If you don’t mind you can add the pulp as it is. Let it begin to bubble.
  5. Pour this to the mashed dal. Stir well. Turn off the heat.
  6. Serve sorakaya pappu with rice or roti.

Kiyaan Singh’s Kitchen Note

Keep this recipe as a working base: cook once as written, then adjust spice, texture, and serving style for your own table.