Dondakaya Koora (Tindora Curry)

Ingredients:

Dondakaayalu (Tindora) - 250gm

Onions (medium) - 2

Cumin seeds - 2 tbsp

Red chillies - 4-5

Curryleaves - 1 leaflet

Coriander leaves - 2tbsp

Turmeric - pinch

Salt - as per taste

Oil - 2 tbsp

Procedure:

1. Wash, clean and finely chop tindora, onions in to small pieces.
2. Take a pan, add cumin seeds and red chillies. Roast them without oil for 1 minute by continuous stiring.
3. Now grind the roasted red chillies and cumin seeds in to fine powder and set aside.
4. In the same pan, heat oil and add curry leaves. Stir them for 1 min.
5. Now add finely chopped onions and tindora pieces together and cook them by closing the lid with occassional stiring (or else they will stick to the bottom of the pan).
6. Once the tindora pieces start turning soft, add turmeric and salt. Stir well and again add the fine powder of red chillies and cumin powder.
7. Cook the entire ingredients for few more minutes until the tindora pieces are well cooked.
8. Finally switch off the flame and garnish with finely chopped coriander leaves.

TIP: The main step in cooking this recipe is stiring. If stiring is not done properly the ingredients may char easily and the taste of the dish may alter. Unlike other recipes, here chopped onions are added along with tindora pieces. This is because tindora takes a long time to be cooked. So, once they are added after frying onions, by the time tindora is fried the onions will be charred. To prevent this and for even cooking both are added together.