Zucchini is not my favorite vegetable. Somehow I don’t find it super delicious and its full of water, so whenever I try to cook zucchini, they loose consistency and texture. Plus, in Denmark, zucchini is super expensive,as one zucchini cost almost the same as a kilo of potato! Well, in abroad I miss lots of vegetables grown back home and sometimes zucchini gets a chance in my kitchen. Therefore, I will be cooking an improvised version of Lau Muug Daal er ghonto aka Bottle Gourd with Muug bean with zucchini.

Usually I stir fry zucchini, but this recipe is slightly different than stir fry. However the ingredients list is short anyway, ginger paste (you can always substitute with ginger powder), turmeric, coriander and cumin powder, bay leaves and chili. The main ingredients would be zucchini and peeled muug daal (Vigna radiata).

At first, you need to dry roast the muug daal in a well heated pan. Warm the pan very well in high heat and add muug daal, roast them until they start to get reddish and release fragrance. Stir continuously, do not leave the site otherwise muug daal get burned very quickly. Once they are nicely roasted, take them out of heat and soak in warm water. Keep soaked muug daal aside.

Second step would be to prepare zucchinis. I have peeled two of my zucchini among three, as I would love to see some contrast in my food. But you can always leave the skin on or peel them completely. Now, one thing that really bothers me is zucchinis are very soft and high water content vegetable. So they get mashed easily no matter how carefully you cook them. For this recipe, I will not add extra water to cook zucchini, but I will cut them in half and slice in 1cm minimum thickness. You can slice them even thicker (later I realized that I should have done that too).

After prepping vegetables, heat the oil in a deep pan on a medium flame. You can use any kinds of vegetable oil, I have used my favorite mustard oil for this recipe. When oil is hot, add bay leaves and dried chili and cook for not more than 20 seconds.

In a bowl, make a paste of ginger paste/powder, tumeric, cumin and coriander powder with water and add them immediately to the pan with chili and bay leaves. This will splatter a little bit so step a bit far from the pan! When the spice paste starts to get separated from oil, add roasted and soaked muug daal to the pan.

Add soaked muug daal first, stir fry for a minute. Then add little water and let the daal cook for few more minutes. The important part here is to cook the daal but to make them too soft to dissolve in the gravy. When you feel the muug daal is cooked (you can check using a spoon or check one by pressing with your finger), add sliced zucchinis.

Mix zucchinis well with daal and spices. Sprinkle a tea spoon of salt at this stage, but we can also add later if you want. Cover the pan and let the zucchini cook in its own water. Keep the pan under low heat so they don’t get burned at the bottom.

Sometimes, open the lid and stir zucchini so they get cooked properly. Make sure to cover pan after every stirring.

After 10 minutes of simmering in low heat, uncover the pan. You can already see that zucchinis have changed its color, became translucent and releasing a lot of water (pic 2). Now let the zucchini leave all the moisture by cooking it without cover. Be careful while stirring it otherwise you will end up is mashed zucchinis (unless you want to!).

My zucchini with muug daal is looking good, have no extra moisture and starting to release oil. So I will turn off the heat and serve it on a bowl.

Finally, I have some recipe to eat zucchini. I am not sure if I will love zucchini ever, but surely this recipe will bring a change in my monotonous cooking of Danish vegetables!

Recipe: 4 Servings Prep time: 10 minutes, Cooking time: 20 minutes

Ingredients: 3 Zucchini/Squash 100g Muug Daal (Vigna radiata) Spices and Condiments 2 dried Chili 2 bay leaves 1 teaspoon of Ginger Paste/powder 1 teaspoon of Coriander powder 1 teaspoon of Cumin powder 1/2 teaspoon of Turmeric powder 20ml Vegetable oil 1teaspoon Salt

Instruction: 1. Dry roast the muug daal until reddish. Soak them in warm water. 2. Peel and slice zucchini around 1cm thickness minimum. 3. Heat oil in a medium sized pan, add bay leaves and dried chili, wait for 20 seconds then add paste of ginger, turmeric, cumin, coriander powder. Add little water if necessary. Cook for a minutes or two until the raw flavor of spice go away. 4. Add soaked muug daal. Stir them for a minutes or two in the spice. Add little water and cook for few minutes. 5. Add sliced zucchini to pan. Incorporate everything very well. Cover the pan with lid and let the zucchini simmer in low heat. Stir often in between carefully. 6. After 10 minutes, uncover the pan and let zucchini cook for few minutes, until they look dry and no moisture left on the pan. Turn off the heat and serve zucchini with muug daal with rice or ruti!