Muthiya (dudhi muthiya)

A vegan sausage made with a mix of whole grain flours and veggies.

Gujarati cuisine is one of my most favorite Indian cuisines, especially for their effortlessly simple and delicious vegan and vegetarian dishes. One dish that I particularly like to make is muthiya. I make it with several different veggies, but my most favorite is dudhi muthiya.

Makar sankranti is celebrated in India to mark the end of Winter solstice and its celebrated in Gujarat with a bigger bang than any other state. That’s what reminded me to make muthiya and share the recipe with you today!

I have a bunch of Gujarati dishes that I learnt from my friends, which are now part of my everyday cooking. Just like their beautiful food, they are very endearing people and a majority of friends I made in the last 10 years are gujjus – a statistic I recently realized 😀 I can also speak gujarati fluently – a skill I acquired from my friends of course and also from watching recipe videos in guarati!!

This recipe is made with dudhi/ lauki (bottle gourd), however you can also make it with methi leaves, carrots, cabbage, zucchini, or a mix of these! These are enjoyed as a tea time snack or an appetizer OR you can add these to a curry to make a main dish to serve with some bhakri or chapati!

you will need:

3/4 cup whole wheat flour

3/4 cup whole jowar flour

3 tbsp of gram (chickpea/ besan) flour

1 tsp coriander

1/2 tsp cumin seed powder

1 tsp red chilli powder

1/2 tsp turmeric powder

3 tsp sugar

1 tsp ginger & chilli paste

2 pinch soda bi carb

Juice of 1 ripe lime

2 tbsp oil

A bunch of chopped cilantro leaves

2 1/2 cups of grated bottle gourd – peeled and then grated (lauki – I took one whole small sized bottle gourd, if its tender and small, you do not need to take the seeds out. Dont use a bottle gourd that is too mature or overripe)

salt to taste

For tempering: 2 tbsp Oil, 1 tsp Mustard Seeds, 1-2 tbsp Sesame Seeds, a pinch of asafoetida

Procedure:

• Boil water in your steamer.
• Grease the base of the sieve that goes on top of the steamer.
• If you don’t have a steamer you can also use a pot of water with a metal sieve and lid that fit over it.
• In a bowl mix together wheat flour, jowar flour, gram flour, coriander & cumin powders, red chilli powder,  turmeric powder, soda bi carb and sugar.
• To the well mixed dry mixture, add ginger & chilli paste, chopped cilantro, lemon juice and oil

• Add the grated bottle gourd ( lauki ) and mix well – note that we have not added the salt yet!

• At this point make sure your steamer water is steaming and then add the salt.
• You will notice that as soon as you add salt, the bottle gourd will start leaving water and the mixture will start to form a dough and will start coming together.

• This completely depends on the water content of the vegetable you are using. Bottle gourd, carrots, zucchini, cabbage will all leave a lot of water. If you are using methi leaves, you will need to add some water to make the dough. Also sometimes, some vegetables naturally have less water content and you might ahve to add water to make the dough.

• Apply oil to your hands and make cylindrical rolls with the dough like sausages and place it on the greased steamer and let it steam for 20 -25 minutes.
• Check if done by inserting a toothpick – it should come out not-sticky.

• Once cooked, remove from the steamer and let them cool down completely.
• You can shrink wrap these and freeze them for a couple months and refrigerate them for up to a week
• You can slice them and eat them as is or you can saute them with a tempering and make them crispy and golden to add depth of flavor and texture.
• Cut them into 1/4 inch thick slices – Heat some oil in a flat frying pan and add mustard seeds, asafoetida and sesame seeds.
• Another way of making muthiya is to make small bite sized rolls and steam them, without the need to cut them
• Place the slices/ bite sized muthiya on the pan over the hot tempering and let them shallow fry.
• Once crispy and golden from one side, flip the slices and drizzle some more oil.

• Muthiya can also be deep fried if you like. In that case add the sesame to the dough itself.

• Garnish with coriander leaves – and serve warm