Few years ago, during my first visit back to India, one of our aunts invited us for lunch. One of the items on the menu was dondakaya perugu pachadi and I liked it a lot. She chopped dondakaya and made raita or perugu pachadi with raw dondakaya. The crunchy raw vegetable in seasoned yogurt was mouthwatering! After coming back from my vacation, I forgot all about this pachadi. Two or three years ago, when I was on a guilt trip of not consuming enough calcium thru my diet, I was thinking of various ideas to make riatas and perugu pachadi. I remembered this pachadi and made it a few times. My pachadi was not as delicious as my aunt’s but it was palatable.  I have not made the pachadi since then and thanks to this marathon, here I am with this delicious perugu pachadi.

For the third day of the marathon, I am sharing this dondakaya perugu pachadi under the theme five or less ingredients. Ivy gourd is dondakaya & perugu is yogurt in telugu.

Ingredients:

1. 15 Dondakaya / Tindora / Ivy Gourd or 1 ½ cups Ivy Gourd cut into semi-circles
2. ½ small Red Onion chopped
3. 1 tsp. Mustard Powder
4. 1 cup Yogurt
5. Tempering & Seasoning
   • Salt to taste (approx. 1 tsp.)
   • 2 tsp. Oil
   • ½ tsp. Jeera
   • ½ tsp. Mustard Seeds
   • ½ Urad Dal
   • 3 Curry Leaves
   • 1 Red Chili (I normally don’t like to add red chili but  added for a good picture)
   • 3 Green Chilies deseeded and chopped (optional. You could either use red chilies or green)

Preparation:

• Wash ivy gourd and cut them into semi – circles or quarter-circles and chop the onion.
• Take ivy gourd & onion into a serving bowl. Add mustard powder, salt and mix well.
• Now add the yogurt. Taste it and adjust mustard powder & salt to your taste.
• In a pan take some oil for tempering. Oil is hot; add cumin, mustard and urad dal. When the seeds pop, add curry leaves, dry chili & green chilies. When the chilies are roasted, turn off the heat, add turmeric. Let the tempering cool.
• Add it to the pachadi. Serve it as a side dish with rice or roties.

If you like this pachadi, you may also like these raitas & perugu pachadis

Recipes posted this month in 2008, in 2009 and in 2010.

Blogging Marathon: To know more about the various themes and participating bloggers for this marathon, checkout the blogging marathon page on Srivalli’s blog.
Event Entries: This is my entry to Srivalli’s Condiment Mela