Cucumber Gojju / Southekayi Hasi Gojju

Hope you are all doing good. I am fine at my end. I feel like I just finished a short sprint. I feel relaxed and raring to go. I refer sprint as a packed week with full of activities. The last week, I was to off to a short vacation to Mysore and a small birthday party. All these have contributed to my absence from blogging space for a short time 🙂 Before I get into the next sprint, I will be updating my blog with few simple and handy recipes.

Cucumber Gojju, a highly inspired recipe from Karnataka, was in my to-do list for long time. I was waiting for an apt time to prepare it since it was a kind of raw recipe which needs only seasoning for good flavor. Initially, I prepared it in a very small quantity and asked my husband (who is not fond of recipes which has raw ingredients in it) to taste it whether he likes it or not. To my surprise, he liked the taste very much. What else? the entire gojju went to his plate. Ok, I don’t want to drag this anymore and let’s move on to the recipe.

Basic Information:

Preparation Time: 15 minutes

Serves: 3

Ingredients:

For Gojju:

Cucumber – 1/2 cup, finely chopped

Coriander leaves – 1 spring, for garnishing

For Grinding:

Coconut – 1/4 cup

Roasted channa dal / Pottu kadalai / Roasted Gram – 2 tablespoons

Tamarind – a marble size

Cumin seeds – 1/2 teaspoon

Mustard seeds – 1/2 teaspoon

Jaggery – 1 tablespoon

Green Chillies – 2-3 nos

Salt – to taste

For Seasoning:

Oil – 2 teaspoons

Mustard seeds – 1/4 teaspoon

Curry leaves – 1 spring

Asafoetida -a pinch

Dry red chillies – 2 nos.,

Method:

1) Wash cucumber and peel off the skin. I liked the crunchy taste of cucumber and so I added cucumber with skin.

2) Add the chopped cucumber in a wide bowl.

3) In a mixer, add all the ingredients given under grinding. Add enough water for grinding. Cucumber tend to release water, so add water according to it. I wanted mine to be semi liquid so added 1/4 cup of water.

4) Grind the ingredients to a fine paste. Add this paste to the bowl which has cucumber in it.

5) Add enough salt.  Mix well. Now the gojju is ready. You can have it as such or add the following seasoning.

6) Heat oil in another pan and add mustard seeds to splutter. Add curry leaves, red chilli and asafoetida. Let it become crisp. Pour this seasoning to the cucumber gojju.

7) Garnish with finely chopped coriander and Serve immediately with hot steamed rice or with roti.

Notes:

1) If you are planning to serve it later, add salt just before serving. Keep refrigerated till you serve.

2) Since it has raw ingredients, it has short shelf time. So have plans accordingly.