If there’s one thing that I disliked to eat as a child, it was mapudzi or water gourd. My mother loves them and we had to eat whatever she prepared. It was better when we ate it with sour milk and we would add some sugar to mask the terrible taste. I still will not willingly pick them up to eat.
One of aunties brought my mom some to cook from her farm. I decided to try something different. I made a curry. I will be honest, this is still my effort in masking the taste of mapudzi and fortunately it worked!
My mother and her friends are my favourite people to cook for. my mom is always willing to taste my test recipes even the ones that are obvious fails. I guess part of it is that she doesn’t like to waste food as well as her way of always encouraging me to try new recipes. If no one else likes what I make, I know my mom will try it! If she doesn’t like it she doesn’t ask for it again.
She loved this one. For me the best part is that I used ingredients that most people already have at home and are very affordable. I cooked mapudzi in sour milk over low heat and it worked marvellously. One thing I should have done was peel the gourd. Rarakukomba and I don’t know how to put that in English.
Here’s how I made the curry
Mapudzi curry
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 chopped onion
- 1 teaspoon crushed garlic
- 1 tablespoon curry powder
- 1 cup sour milk
- 1 chopped Bottle gourd Budzi (you can peel it if you prefer that)
- Salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
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Heat oil on medium heat in a saucepan.
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Saute onion until translucent, add garlic and stir. Add curry powder and stir for a minute.
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Add the chopped gourd and stir until coated in the onion mixture.
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Add the milk a little at a time to avoid curdling. Leave to simmer until tender.
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Serve immediately with some roti or chapati.
