Ghiya ki Kheer - Bottle Gourd Pudding

Surprise your guests by making a Desserts out of the vegetable that they would usually simply boil with some spices! Yummy Lauki ki Kheer

How to make Ghiya ki Kheer?

As always, we will start by washing the vegetables. The next step will be to cut off the stem and the small piece at the end. After that peel the bottle gourd and then cut it lengthwise in halves and then in quarters. Take a spoon and take out the seeds which we will not use in the kheer. Now you need to grate the ghiya into fine stripes.

These were the preparations and now we will start cooking. Heat up the ghee in a wok and put the bottle gourd into the wok, stirring and thus frying it for about ten minutes. Once you can see that it changes to a lightly golden colour, you can add the milk. You will still need to stir from time to time so that the bottle gourd does not burn to the bottom of the wok.

After about five minutes, the mixture is thick and the vegetable is soft. This is the point when you can add the sugar. If you add the sugar in the beginning, your bottle gourd won’t get properly soft. Adding it now will make your kheer thinner again which is why you need to stir another five minutes and wait until the sugar is properly mixed with the milk and the kheer is as thick as you like it.

This is where you are actually already done but you can refine the dish by adding raisins, pieces of nuts or some cardamom.

Enjoy!