Kaddu ki Sabzi

When I started giving sabzi-roti to Devansh for lunch, I would more often than not cook a vegetable from the gourd family—bottle gourd, pumpkin, little gourd, or snake gourd. Toddlers find these vegetables easy to chew plus they are easy to digest. Even now that he’s almost four, Devansh doesn’t find these sabzis boring as most of us grownups do. For instance, you won’t catch my husband eating any of the vegetables mentioned above.

So I make them for lunch when hubby’s away for work. Pumpkins (kaddus) are high in water content and are a good source of minerals and vitamins, making them an ideal summer food. At the risk of sounding preachy, I would say do include this nutritional kaddu sabzi in your diet even if you find it boring, you will cultivate the taste for it. The numerous health benefits derived from it definitely make the effort worthwhile. Plus it’s not a labor-intensive recipe, like most of my recipes this one too can be cooked real fast. :-)

Red Pumpkin (Kaddu) Sabzi Recipe

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Use this healthy and nutritious kaddu sabzi recipe to include vitamins- and minerals-rich pumpkins in your diet.

Author Mukta Tikekar

Ingredients

• One cup cubed red pumpkin without the skin
• 2 tbsp freshly grated coconut
• 1 tbsp coarsely powdered peanuts peeled and roasted
• 1 tbsp goda masala alternatives suggested in the recipe
• Half tsp red chili powder
• Half tsp cumin seeds jeera
• 1/4 th tsp asofoetida hing
• 1/4 th tsp turmeric powder haldi
• Jaggery to taste
• Salt to taste
• 1 tbsp oil

Instructions

• Heat a small cooker and add oil.
• When the oil heats up, add cumin seeds.
• When the cumin seeds splutter, add hing and haldi.
• Add red pumpkin pieces immediately otherwise haldi will get burnt. Stir the pieces once. (Before cutting the pumpkin into pieces, grate its skin and save it for making chutney. I’ll share the chutney recipe in the next post.)
• Add red chili powder, goda masala, and peanuts powder, and then give the sabzi a good stir. (If you don’t have goda masala, you can add dhania powder, jeera powder, and black pepper powder. But goda masala contains much more than these ingredients and adds a great flavor to this sabzi. So I would recommend making or buying one.)
• Add half cup of water and close the lid of the cooker.
• Cook on low flame for one whistle and then allow the cooker to cool. (If you are making this sabzi for toddlers and want to make it slightly mushy, you can cook for two whistles.)
• When the pressure has settled, take off the lid and add grated coconut, salt, and jaggery. (I add salt and jaggery towards the end because you get a better idea of the quantity of the cooked sabzi at this stage.)
• Cook the sabzi on low flame for another five minutes, add chopped coriander and turn off heat. (Don’t add coriander if your toddler cannot eat it properly.)
• Serve hot with chapatis.