Dosakaya Curry. Kind of.

I thought I was going to scream if another cucumber appeared in my weekly vegetable box. I am not their biggest fan, and there are only so many salads involving cucumber that I want to eat. Then I remembered reading about dosakaya curry and suddenly the latest cucumber seemed considerably more promising.

Dosakaya curry is usually made with dosakaya, a round yellow cucumber used particularly in South Indian cooking. I didn't have one, obviously, so after some internet research I came up with a version using the English cucumber from my vegetable box along with a yellow summer squash. I also took a considerable liberty with the spices. Rather than tempering the individual spices more traditionally used in the dish, I used some very potent curry powder that was ground for me at a market in Singapore, along with garam masala. So this is very much a dosakaya-inspired curry rather than a factual rendition of the original.

It was also extremely hot outside and food was considerably less appealing than it usually is, so a bowl of tender but still slightly firm vegetables in a light, spicy broth, topped with a warm soft-boiled egg, was all the dinner I wanted.

The recipe made four servings: one for dinner, one for lunch and two for the freezer. I only added an egg to the portion I ate immediately; add a freshly cooked one when serving the remaining portions.

1 medium English cucumber

1 medium yellow summer squash

1/2 small onion2 cloves garlic

1 whole Thai chile

2 Tbsps tomato concentrate

2 tsps strong curry powder, or 1 Tbsp milder store-bought curry powder

2 tsps garam masala

2 tsps olive oil

4 eggs, if serving all four portions at once

Salt to taste

Partially peel the cucumber in alternating strips, then cut it in half lengthwise and roughly remove the seeds. Halve and roughly seed the summer squash, leaving its thin skin intact. Cut both vegetables into half moons as illustrated above.

Finely chop the onion and garlic.

Heat the olive oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion, garlic, whole Thai chile and a pinch of salt and cook until the onion has softened.

Add the curry powder and tomato concentrate and cook briefly, stirring, until the spices are fragrant and the tomato concentrate has darkened slightly.

Add the cucumber and summer squash and stir well so that the vegetables are coated with the spiced tomato mixture. Add 2 cups water and bring to a simmer.

Cook uncovered for no more than about 15 minutes, until the cucumber and squash are tender but still retain some bite. You don't want either vegetable collapsing into the broth.

Shortly before the vegetables are ready, stir in the garam masala and taste for salt, adding more if necessary.

If you are eating a portion immediately, bring a small saucepan of water to a boil. Carefully lower in an egg and cook for 6 minutes. Transfer it immediately to ice water to stop the cooking, then peel it as soon as you can comfortably handle it so that it retains some warmth.

Spoon the curry into a bowl. Halve the egg and place it on top. I put the whole Thai chile back into the bowl as well because this is a rather rustic-looking dish and I thought it looked good there, but remove it before eating.

Refrigerate or freeze any remaining curry without the egg, adding a freshly cooked egg if so desired when you reheat and serve it.