Phaagil or Kaakroll or Teasel Gourd Side Dish in a Milk based gravy

Phaagil in Konkani, Kaakroll in Bengali, Teasel Gourd in English, I am a great fan of this seasonal veggie. Amma used to tawa fry coating it with semolina and we would gulp in one after the other. Rawa fry is ofcourse time consuming. Typical me is always on the lookout for easy recipes for weekday juggling.

When in Kolkata, we were 5 ladies' group to have lunch together. 4 of us used to bring lunch from home and it was like a picnic daily. When Abbas would ask at the end of the day, what I had for lunch, I would go on and on with around 10-12 dishes! We would talk about everything under the sun, right from current affairs to parenting to sharing recipes to office gossip to politics to .... just everything. Post lunch we would walk out of the office campus to have tender coconut water. One of them, Amrita, had brought this dish and it instantly became my favourite. Here goes the recipe:

Ingredients:

Teasel Gourds - 5-6, sliced into rounds
Ginger paste - 1 tbsp
Milk - 1 cup
Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
Salt to taste
Oil - 2 tbsp

Method:

1. Heat oil in a pan. Add salt and turmeric powder and the teasel gourd rings. Reduce the flame, put on the lid and let it cook for a while. Once they lightly brown, and half cooked, remove from oil and keep aside.

2. Add ginger paste to the same oil and saute till raw smell goes away.

3. Add the fried gourd rings, milk. Adjust salt if required. Cover and cook on low flame till gourd is fully cooked and gravy thickened.