Bottle gourd soup or lauki soup: a healthy and creamy soup made with lauki or bottle gourd, made Indian-style. Bottle gourd is known as lauki, dudhi, or ghia in Hindi, sorakai in Tamil, chorakka in Malayalam. Bottle gourd is commonly used in kootu and stir-fries in South India and lends itself really well for use as base in a soup. Like all good intentions, I started a middle-of-the-year resolution to make and drink more healthy homemade soups, especially for dinner. Since I prefer soups with more body, I decided to start with a simple and healthy bottle gourd that also has some cooked moong dal to make it creamy. For flavour, I just added some roasted and crushed cumin and pepper. We loved the soup and I am planning to try a variation with carrot and tomatoes to add a bit more depth to the flavours. Pin Coming back to my resolution of drinking more soup, it was short-lived but I did get a good handful of recipes to store away from that time. This bottle gourd soup is possibly my favourite. The gourd adds a lovely depth and creaminess to the soup and moong dal is light, healthy, and easy on your stomach. Perfect for dinner with some bread or a salad. I don’t have a lot of bottle gourd recipes yet in here but check out this lauki kofta recipe which is really yum. Also, if you are looking for an interesting soup recipe, check out the veg tom kha soup. Step by Step Bottle Gourd Soup Recipe Wash, peel, and cube the bottle gourd. I used a pressure cooker to make the soup so didn’t make the pieces even or very small Pin Wash the moong dal and place in the pressure pan with about 1.5 cups water Pin Add the cubed bottle gourd and onions along with the garlic to the pressure pan Pin Pressure cook for 4-5 whistles. If you are cooking in a regular pot, simmer covered on low heat until the bottle gourd and moong dal are cooked soft Pin Using an immersion blender, blend the ingredients until smooth Pin Add more water if the soup is too thick Pin The seasoning I used is roasted and powdered cumin seeds with some freshly cracked black pepper Pin You can add as much as or as little as you’d like. Pin Serve bottle gourd soup hot with some crusty bread or a side salad. Notes:
You can add one green chilli to the bottle gourd and dal as they cook, this will give some extra flavour and heat to the soup Use red lentils (masoor dal) instead of moong dal for a different texture and flavour Add some coriander leaves to the soup before blending, tastes awesome Add some crushed red chillies instead of pepper. TH likes this although I prefer pepper in my soups Add 1 tsp of butter or olive oil over the soup before serving, this enhances the flavour a lot. A pinch of sugar really helps too.
