దోసకాయ పచ్చడి: Dosakaya Pacchadi: Round Yellow Cucumber Chutney

Serves: Fills a 450 ml/16 fl oz bottle. Preparation time: 1 hour including assembling ingredients, washing, chopping, roasting, grinding. 


Ingredients:
4 Round yellow Apple cucumbers (Dosakaya)                    
2 Tbsp Oil
2 heaped Tsp Split Black Gram
4 Dry Red chillies
1 heaped Tsp Coriander seeds
1 heaped Tsp Cumin seeds
1 level Tsp Mustard seeds
1 level Tsp Turmeric
1 level Tsp Asafoetida
1 level Tsp Fenugreek powder
1 heaped Tsp or to taste; Salt
1/4 Tsp Sugar
3 sprigs Cilantro


Method:

1. Wash Dosakaya and pat dry. Cut into half, peel the outer skin.  Scoop out the clump of seeds from its middle and discard. Finely chop into small pieces. Set aside. 
2. Wash Cilantro in fresh water and chop fine. Set aside. 
3. In a saucepan/wok, heat the oil on medium-low flame. As it is heating, break dry red chillies into small pieces. 
4. When oil is medium hot, add Black gram and dry red chillies. Stir frequently so that all ingredients are evenly browned. When black gram turns golden yellow, add Coriander & Cumin seeds. When black gram turns golden red, add Mustard seeds, Asafoetida & Turmeric (if you add turmeric initially, you won't be able to make out the colour difference in black gram), mustard seeds will splutter.
5. Switch of the heat and add Fenugreek powder. Let this tempering cool. 
6. Grinding: First grind the spice mix resulting from steps 4&5 along with the salt. Next, add the finely chopped Dosakaya and grind with a quick spurt of power on whipping/Pulse mode. Open the mixer jar, add sugar and mix the contents so that the mashed pieces come up while untouched pieces go down. Grind once again on whipping/pulse mode. Repeat this process until all pieces are roughly mashed, around 4 times for the quantity mentioned in this recipe. 
7. Transfer contents into a clean glass jar, garnish with the Cilantro and refrigerate. 

Precautions/Variations:

1. Dosakayas sometimes turn out bitter. Hence, while chopping the Dosakaya, taste a tiny piece of each fruit. Discard any bitter fruit otherwise the entire dish can turn out bitter.
2. Manju pinni suggests: If you like whole crisp grains in your recipe, you can grind the tempering-Dosakaya together so that the blackgram doesn't get properly ground down. Or, you can grind Dosakaya and pour the tempering over it.
3. One can use green chillies too in this recipe.
4. The basic tempering mix used in this recipe has been described earlier in Beerakaya, Tomato pacchadis too. Several chutneys can be made with this same spice base. You can prepare the spice base to last for a week and make a fresh chutney everyday using a small quantity of fresh vegetable and some of the spice base. This way, we can have quick variety frequently.
5. Dosakaya is a sour fruit, hence the recipe doesn't need a souring agent. However, if you feel the need, you may squeeze in a few drops of lemon juice just before serving, or mix in some tamarind paste.
6. If you don't have Dosakaya, you can use the ordinary English cucumber, it closely mimics the flavour, but will need a souring agent (tamarind paste or lemon juice).
7. If you intend to make a large quantity of this chutney, it may be advisable to dry roast the Coriander and Cumin seeds separately and then mix into browned black gram & red chillies. This is because all these spices have different cooking times and easily stay undercooked/get burnt within a few seconds of delay.
8. Coriander & Cumin Seeds may be substituted with powders.
9. If using whole Fenugreek seeds: Dry roast them to a brown-black, let them cool, powder and then add to the cooled tempering.


The-Hunt-For-An-English-Name, Culture and Health:
Dosakaya is a South Indian cultivar of Cucumber/Melon. It belongs to the 'Cucurbitaceae' plant family, to which all gourds & melons belong. Cucumber (Cucumis sativus) originated in India. Hence, there are several species and cultivars of cucumber/melon/gourd unique to the Indian subcontinent, with no Western/English equivalents. 
It can be translated at best as a round yellow cucumber... Some people describe it as a 'Lemon Cucumber', others call it an 'Apple Cucumber', but it is really not one. I even heard the term 'Melon Cucumber'. After much research into the species of edible cucumbers & melons (during which I collided into more confused people like me, without any conclusive results), I concluded that it does not have an accurate English name, the closest I got to in scientific names was "Cucumis melo var. agrestis". 
The presence of the chemical 'Phenylthiocarbamide' is believed to lend bitter tones to some fruit. Dosakaya is rich in vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals, low in fat. Fruits/vegetables from the 'Cucurbitaceae' plant family are full of water & fibre, need very little oil to cook and are said to be very good for health according to Ayurveda. Traditional Telugu cuisine exploits a variety of these fruits/vegetables: Beerakaya, Potlakaya, Boodida gummadikaya, Erra gummadi, Kakarakaya to name a few.  
This pacchadi is especially very good for health since the Dosakaya is consumed raw. 


Trivia:
I learnt this recipe from my mom-in-law(Indira aunty), she cooks an amazing variety of delicious pacchadis and podis. My foray into the world of pacchadis started all because of Krishna's love for pacchadis. Now I am addicted to aunty's pacchadi recipes even more than he is!
I added some minor precautions/suggestions from various sources into it.