Bottle gourd/doodhi/louki/gheeya/ soup

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by Deeksha Pathak

Bottle gourd soup or lauki ka soup is generally not a welcome soup by family members. Generally it is given to sick persons for them to gain strength and to keep the digestion in control.

But have you ever tried bottle gourd soup with tomatoes🍅 🍅.

Tomatoes add wonderful flavor to the soup along with shallots.

Bottle gourd and tomato combo goes very well. If I prepare bottle gourd in simple curry form or with chana daal, then I add tomato puree in it. In Louki ke kofte ki sabzi Lauki ke kofte ki sabzi (grated bottle gourd dumplings in curry)  also we use tomatoes for puree. With the addition of tomatoes no one is going to say no to this wonderful, nutritious soup. But if because of some health reasons or unavailability of tomatoes you are not able to add tomatoes, add some lemon juice in the soup. Lemon juice also helps in enhancing the taste of bottle gourd.

I have a few more soup posts in the blog. If you are interested, can check them also…

Tomato Soup

Carrot tomato soup

Ingredients:

Bottle gourd 200 gm

Tomatoes 100 gm

Shallots 40 gm

Butter 1 - 2 tbsp (optional)

Salt as per your taste.

Black pepper as per your taste.

Water 4 – 5 cups

Some points to remember:

  1. Try to avoid ripen bottle gourd which has big seeds in it. Select complete raw bottle gourd.
  2. Vegetable stock can be used along with water. But I preferred to use only water as it helped in enhancing the taste of tomatoes, shallots and bottle gourd.
  3. Generally cornflour is used to increase thickness in soups. But because of nice pulp of bottle gourd, this soup was anyhow quite thick. So we don’t need to add cornflour.
  4. Regular onions can also be used in place of shallots.
  5. Cream can be added during serving to enhance the taste and flavor.

Process:

Wash all three veggies and peel shallots and onion. Next, chop all in small pieces.

In a pan or pressure cooker boil them in one cup of water and 1/8th tsp salt till all veggies become soft.

After boiling, grind them in a mixer and sieve the pulp to avoid seeds in soup. Add rest of the water to this thick pulp and boil it on sim heat for 10 – 15 minutes. Add butter and salt and pepper according to your taste.

Serve hot soup with croutons or bread sticks and enjoy your winter evening!

 

Published by

Deeksha Pathak

I like reading, watching movies, listening to music, doing some art and craft, cooking, baking and exploring new ideas. Baking is my new passion!!

61 thoughts on “Bottle gourd/doodhi/louki/gheeya/ soup”

  2. Hello Deeksha…doing great so far🌷…I have been doing some practice at home…it’s a bit challenging though but I’m trying😊…

    1. Arv, I agree, bottle gourd is always considered quite dull vegetable. But courtesy my mother, I love it cooked in all different ways. And many people like loki ke kofte ki subzi though they don’t like normal louki ki subzi.
      Surprisingly, soup also came out really well.Tomatoes help a lot to elevate the taste. Try it once, not much efforts to prepare.

      1. Sure. Will do Deeksha. Loki is considered as excellent thing to eat when recovering from illness or surgeries.

  8. I like bottle gourd a lot. In my hometown, we usually use it as stir-fried dish! It is very delicious to go with rice. ^O^
    Nice recipe! I want to try it. Maybe I can introduce the recipe to my mom!

      1. Thinking of the sir-fry bottle gourd makes me smile.
        It is pretty simple:
        1.slice the gourd into pieces, and cut them in long, thin strips
        2. oil , and place all the slices of gourd into a pan or wok.
        3. you may add up any seasonings you like. however, my mom usually added some tofu and simply seasoned it with salt and white pepper.
        4. add up a little water or veggie stock while stir-frying.
        5. done. serve with rice!

        Enjoy!

      2. I guess all moms think alike😀😀
        My mom also cooks stir fried version almost in the same way,with minute difference of spices. Thank you very much for the recipe Oscar.I will definitely try it one day 😊😊

  11. Bottle gourd? In the photo it looks like a marrow or large zucchini or courgette. Is this what it is? I would like to try this soup but I am not sure that we have bottle gourds here.

    1. Anne, bottle gourd is a lot similar to zucchini. Taste is almost same. We were in Jamaica for 3 years and there I got introduced with zucchini.The whole Indian community there was using zucchini as a substitute for bottle gourd, though we started getting bottle gourd later. So you can prepare soup with zucchini comfortably.

      1. Yes Deeksha and my husband was told to have this soup everyday as he had prostrate and it really worked wonders for many years with him. Of course after a few years he was operated but bitter gourd has many health properties. Welcome.

  17. Pumpkins (in Peru and Chile, zapallo; in Venezuela, auyama). For a soup or cream, they are dishes of my preferences. With that variation of tomato, it should have a very special flavor. Thank you for the recipe.

    1. You are most welcome Mach😊😊And in Hindi language we call pumpkin as ‘kaashifal’ and’kaddu’. I have never tasted soup with pumpkin. We use pumpkin for preparing as a vegetable or raita.The white version Ash gourd is even used for preparing sweet ‘Petha’… a complete no fat sweet ! One day I will definitely prepare pumpkin soup also !!!

  19. Dee, you have the most unusual recipes. This soup looks really good. I’ve never tasted gourds to be honest with you, so I really don’t know if I would like this soup.

    1. Thank you so much Amy 😊😊
      Bottle gourd belongs to the family of zucchini.It tastes almost same as zucchini so comfortably you can try. With the addition of tomatoes and shallots soup tasted really good. You can add your choice of herbs also.

  22. Couldn’t have asked for more than a hot cup of soup! What better can be when it’s loaded with also health benefits. Your recipe is simple; light on tummy heavy with benefits. Thankyou for sharing this one 💗

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