Sorakkai Kootu / Bottle Gourd Dhall

Sorakkai Kootu / Bottle Gourd Dhall

The health benefits of the sorakkai / bottle gourd or fondly called as Lagenaria siceraria by botanists.. are that it promotes weight loss, helps digestion, treats constipation, provides cooling effect, replenishes loss of water content, keeps the heart and liver healthy, blah blah.. and lot more. But the main reason I like to use sorakkai is because.. its easily available and cooks quickly. Sorakkai kootu is a one pot dish.

Sorakkai  is such a polite vegetable, it does not have any intense flavour so it compliments  any other ingredient you add with it. There is one dish which my ammamma and mom makes - sorakkai-shrimp (prawns) curry, where the sorakai takes up this shrimp flavour and the whole dish tastes shrimp-licious !

Sorakkai / Bottle Gourd Poriyal with Peanuts

Sorakkai Poriyal with Peanut Shower

This recipe is again from my dad's native. Since they cultivated peanuts, they had peanuts whole year round. As I told you earlier in my agathi keerai poriyal recipe post, my dad grew up eating peanuts as morning snack, evening snack, before-bed snack and even mid-night snack.

For snack, we roast peanuts, boil peanuts, roast them in hot red fuming coals in the aduppu, burn them with other dry twigs or plants, or if nothing else.. just eat it raw !