Some dishes like this Yellow Cucumber Dal are both comforting and flavourful.
Dosakaya (in Telugu) or Sauthekai (in Kannada) is an interesting vegetable. Its outer skin is almost a work of modern art – or so I think!
The inside of this vegetable is crunchy and opaque, when raw, but becomes soft and translucent when cooked, with a soothing, mild flavour.
The flesh of the yellow cucumber is mostly water but also contains vitamin C. The skin has a lot of fibre and minerals such as silica and magnesium.
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This recipe is made in the traditional Telugu culinary style and it can be eaten with either rice or rotis. You could also add a little extra water while cooking to get a soupy consistency and then, well, slurp it as soup!
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When choosing your dosakaya, make sure you get one which is more yellow-orange than yellow-green because the more orange the vegetable the less likely that it is bitter. Ensure that you taste test a piece for bitterness in any case right before you cook it — you don’t want to put in all the effort and end up with a bitter dish, right?!
Before we get to the recipe, here’s a simple info-graphic on how to prepare this work-of-art vegetable.
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This recipe is suitable for diabetics, weight watchers, and comfort food cravers.
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My TIPS for this recipe:
- For a milder version, leave out the ginger garlic paste and chillies.
- While cooking the dal and the yellow cucumber together, add just enough water for the dal itself. There’s no need to add any extra cooking water for the cucumber.
- Some people prefer to peel the cucumber before cooking, so feel free to try it like that. We like ours peel and all!
- I completely forgot to add curry leaves to my version. Please add it in (while roasting the mustard and cumin) if you have them on hand!
For a variation of this recipe, do check out this post by Aruna on her blog, Aahram!
