Handvo recipe is a Gujarati recipe which is prepared by mixing some dal or lentils and rice, bottle gourd and few other ingredients. We can basically say that it is a cake of rice, lentils and bottle gourd with some other ingredients. It’s a kind of cake but not the sweet one we crave for.
Gujarati Handvo is a vegetable cake recipe you will crave for, even if you just have it once. Though handvo is not a bakery styled sweet cake but it tastes awesome with some chutney like coconut chutney, peanut chutney or even handvo recipe goes well with tomato ketchup. You can check my super simple chutney recipe blog to have a good side combination with Handvo – Quick Peanuts Chutney Recipe.
Gujarati Handvo Recipe is prepared by soaking lentils and rice for a few hours. Then we grind all ingredients together to make smooth or a little bit coarse batter. Later we have to rest handvo batter for few hours or overnight for fermentation. This is a time consuming way but if you need instant handvo recipe then we can use curd and we can avoid wait time which is required for batter fermentation. However, we still need to soak all ingredients.
No worries, plan it, soak all dal and lentils in morning hours, grind them by evening whenever you get some free time. Then let it ferment overnight. Your handvo batter will be ready for morning breakfast. However, if you plan it for evening snacks then use curd instead of fermenting batter. This handvo recipe is suitable for vegans. Adding curd is not mandatory and you can avoid adding curd to this gujarati handvo if you are veganism follower.
This Gujarati Handvo recipe or vegetable cake recipe became my favorite after I tried it once. I love Gujarati, Rajasthani, Punjabi, Maharasthrian food a lot (basically everything 😁). And I do love South Indian cuisines as well. This handvo recipe batter is basically prepared for handvo recipe but you can use this batter to make south indian recipes like Idli, Dosa or Pancake and Paddu (paniyaram or appe) etc.
Though the quantity of handvo batter would suffice for 4 to 5 people but I had planned 2 recipes with same batter for 2 people. So I used half of the batter for handvo recipe and half of the batter for handvo dosa recipe.
Gujarati Handvo Recipe’s main ingredient is bottle gourd. It makes this handvo very soft from inside and outer part will be nice crisp because of rice and dal batter. I have used more bottle gourd and just little bit of carrot for this handvo recipe. You can use any vegetables of your choice like cabbage or potato etc. But, recommended is to use bottle gourd because that makes handvo recipe outstanding. Just to be specific adding lauki (bottle gourd) to handvo is like “char chaand lagana” (idiom in hindi), means in short adding priceless value.
To check many more such tasty food recipes in video formats, you can also visit FoodQuench’s YouTube Channel.
Let’s check how to make Gujarati Handvo Recipe at home with easily available ingredients.
Gujarati Handvo Recipe – Vegetable Lentils Cake
Description
Ingredients
Ingredients for Handvo Batter
Ingredients for Handvo Tempering or Tadka
Cooking Method for Handvo Recipe
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Rinse all rice and dal (lentils) until water is clear. Add water and soak for 4 hours.
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After 4 hours transfer all dal and rice to a grinder jar with some water in which it was soaked.
If grinder jar is small, then we have to grind all rice and dal in 2 to 3 batches. -
Grind to form a smooth batter.
I just keep little coarse because I like its grainy texture. -
Rest it overnight for fermentation. Batter will be nicely fermented as we can see bubbles in it.
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Rinse bottle gourd, carrot, chilli, ginger and grate them. Peel off bottle gourd and carrot. Then grate bottle gourd, carrot, chilli and ginger.
You can grind chilli and ginger. But, I preferred to grate them because the quantity of chilli and ginger is very less. -
Add ingredients to the handvo batter - bottle gourd, carrot, chilli, ginger, salt and baking soda. Mix well and add just little water to adjust consistency if required.
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Mix well and add just a little water to adjust consistency if required.
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Now heat non-stick pan or kadhai, add 1 tablespoon of oil to it. Once oil is hot, add half of the mustard seeds and allow to crackle. Add half of the cumin seeds and allow to splutter. Later add half of the turmeric powder and asafoetida. Now add sesame seeds and saute until sesame turns aromatic and light golden in colour.
We would be preparing handvo in 2 batches, so we have used half of the ingredients mentioned - mustard seeds, cumin seeds turmeric powder, asafoetida, sesame seeds and oil. -
Now place few spoons (about 4 to 5) of batter as shown in image and sprinkle some sesame seeds on top of the batter when batter is still wet. Close lid and cook on a medium flame to get the batter cooked from one side.
Adding sesame when batter is wet helps to stick sesame seeds on other side too. -
After about few minutes batter is nicely cooked. Now just apply some oil on top layer because we will flip over the side and cook on other side too for making it crisp.
Make sure to cut the Handvo into big pieces (4 pieces) at this stage before flipping over. As it's quite big in size and heavy, it will break if we turn over without cutting. -
Handvo is ready on one side.
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Now just cook for a few more minutes on medium flame and the other side will also become crisp. It's now time to serve hot Handvo Recipe.
Repeat the above steps to make Handvo with remaining batter. -
Gujarati Handvo Recipe can be served with any of your favorite chutney or sauces. Don't forget to try this tasty healthy and vegan friendly handvo recipe and share it with your loved ones too.
