Celebrate Summer With the Most Delicious Dessert Recipes With Bottle Gourd

Bottle gourd, also known as lauki, dudhi, and ghiya, is a common summer vegetable that’s known for its hydrating and cooling properties. A serving of lauki in your summer menu will give you an adequate amount of dietary fibre along with vitamin A,C, and K, and antioxidants like beta-carotene. You don’t need to always have it in savoury form, you can give it a sweet twist too.

In traditional Ayurvedic practice, this vegetable is used to treat so many ailments like diabetes, hypertension, flatulence. It’s also often recommended to people who are trying to follow a low calorie diet to lose weight or just lead a healthier lifestyle.

In this article, we bring to you three of the best indian dessert recipes that use this often popular summer vegetable. Cooking with seasonal produce is always a great idea because you’re eating the freshest of the fresh.

Lauki Halwa

Ingredients:

• 500 g grated bottle gourd (ensure its peeled and de-seeded)
• 4-5 tbsp sugar
• 3 tbsp ghee
• 350 ml milk
• ¼ tsp cardamom powder
• 2 tbsp sliced almonds
• 2 tbsp chopped pistachios
  

Instructions:

• In a deep bottomed pan or kadhai, bring milk to a boil. Then let it simmer and thicken. Once done, set it aside.
• In another pan, heat ghee, then add the grated bottle gourd to it. Fry and ensure that all of the liquid from the vegetable has evaporated.
• Add the thickened milk to the bottle gourd and keep cooking until you get a cohesive mixture.
• Now add sugar and let it caramelise. Keep mixing so you get a thick gooey consistency.
• Finally, add the cardamom powder, sliced almonds and pistachios.

Bottle Gourd Kheer

Ingredients:

• 100-150 g grated bottle gourd
• 1 tbsp ghee
• 500 ml milk
• 50 g sugar
• ¼ tsp cardamom powder
• 2-3 saffron strands soaked in warm milk
• 2-3 tbsp sliced almonds

Instructions:

• In a large enough pressure cooker, add the ghee. Once it’s warm, add the grated bottle gourd and let it cook until the rawness disappears.
• Next, add the milk, sugar, saffron soaked milk, and almonds.
• Put the lid and the whistle on, then pressure cook the pudding for three to four whistles on medium flame.
• If the milk hasn’t thickened after you’ve pressure cooker the bottle gourd and milk, then you can cook it down on medium flame.
• Serve either warm or cold with an additional garnish of sliced almonds.
• You can also add other dried fruits and nuts like raisins, golden sultanas, and walnuts.

Coconut Bottle Gourd Barfi

Ingredients:

• 1 kg grated bottle gourd
• 3 tbsp ghee
• 450 ml milk
• 150 g sugar
• 2 tbsp roasted and sliced almonds
• ¼ tsp cardamom powder

For the coconut mix:

• 350 ml milk
• 150 g milk powder
• 80 g grated coconut

Instructions:

• Peel and de-seed the bottle gourd before grating it.
• Cook it down with 2 tablespoons of ghee until the raw smell of it goes away. At this point, most of the water from the vegetable should have evaporated.
• Add 450 ml of milk to this. Keep cooking until the lauki has softened and the milk has also evaporated.
• Next, add 150 g of sugar, and keep mixing.
• In another pan, heat a tablespoon of ghee, milk and milk powder, and the coconut. Keep cooking until the mixture thickens.
• Transfer it into the lauki and keep mixing on medium flame, and you achieve a dough-like consistency.
• Finally, add the cardamom powder, and almonds.
• In a lined baking tray or thali, spread this dough evenly. Once cool, cut into slices and serve.