Marrow Kofta

I have several things that are unrelated to each other to mention about this recipe.

First off, I think this is weird, and disgusting, but the 2 definitions for marrow are:

1.  something I would never mention in a food post!!!!!

2.  a white-fleshed green-skinned gourd, eaten as a vegetable.

I only found the recipe because when I couldn't find "squash" in the index i looked for "pumpkin" and found a pumpkin variety of a "marrow" dish.  I think the cookbook was Australian or British.  I used Acorn squash.  I was trying to convince my roommate to eat this particular squash before she moved away, but alas... it is still here, yet she and the cat texted from Wyoming today.

Second unrelated thing: I have tried to make the Indian dish Malai Kofta before, maybe just once... and it was not this good.  Malai Kofta is a delicious dish, but to me the deliciousness is in the creamy tomatoey sauce, not the Kofta balls that occasionally intrude upon your enjoyment of the sauce, although you can find some good Kofta to go with your delicious sauce.  This recipe provides delicious, sweet kofta balls that don't taste over-fried, and it is my favorite squash recipe so far.  Yum.

Third:  this is the first time in a very long time that I stopped cooking to write down a recipe while still cooking.  I have an original recipe that one of the Indian cookbooks my sister passed to me when she circled the globe had in it, but I ended up adjusting it a lot.  The original recipe called for coconut powder, cream, tomato puree, and fresh tomatoes, but I don't have any of those things on hand.  I have tomato sauce, tomato paste, diced tomatoes, crushed tomatoes, flaked (not sweet) coconut, and coconut milk, so I did a little replacing to come up with this very delicious concoction.

I also decided not to follow the cooking instructions for the sauce, which were to pulse in a food processor the onions and spices with some tomato puree and cook it in 5 T of corn oil, and then add cream and fresh tomatoes.  I just could not do that, as you will see in the sauce portion of the recipe.


First, the Kofta:
1-1.5 lbs cooked peeled seeded squash
2 T garbanzo (gram) flour
2 T wheat flour
1.5 t coriander
1 t chilli powder
1 t garam masala (but i couldn't find it while making the kofta so put it in the sauce instead)
2 cloves garlic, smashed
1/4 t turmeric

Mash everything together with a potato masher and your hands.  shape into golf-ball sized balls (I think I made 12).
Heat 6 T corn oil in a cast iron pan over medium heat. Constantly turn them to brown on all sides.  Carefully remove them, and pour out the oil.  (I measured it, it was a quarter cup, which means 2 T got soaked into the kofta, which (if it weren't corn oil) would not be that bad, since that is all the oil I used.)

For the sauce, use the same pan with the oil that remained in the pan. Cook:
1 lg red onion - chopped very very small
2 cloves garlic - smashed
until soft
add spices:
1.5 t coriander
1 t cumin (although i didn't measure... just a guess)
1 t chili powder
1/2 t cayenne
1 t garam masala (couldn't find earlier... but was also good in sauce)
2 lg dried red chiles, whole (to be removed later)
cook until spices fragrant (2 mn)
add:
1 13.5 oz can coconut milk
1 8 oz can tomato sauce
and cook for awhile until it thickens.
add the balls and enjoy.

Next time:
chilis?  cilantro?  even maybe parsley.