Gummadikaya Barada

This is very famous recipe from my village. Easy to make, healthy and also it is supposed to increase the math brain of ours. Almost every household in our village has either an engineer or doctor from each home. Part of the reason they mention is because of the food we eat like Gummadikaya barada and Bhendi fry. So here goes one of the traditional recipes:

Ingredients
Gummadikaya (Winter melon) - 1 piece.
Chana dal - 1/2 cup
Moong dal - a fistful (or more depending on your taste)
Cumin seeds (Jeera, Jeelakarra)
Oil
Mustard seeds
Asafoetida
Green chillies
Red chillies
Red chilli powder
Salt to taste
lemon juice or citric acid (if you are planning to use the citric acid them use less salt)

Method of preparation
1) Scrape off the chilka/pottu of gummadikaya (winter melon) and chop it into big pieces.

2) Prepare the gravy by grinding the dals(chana dal, moong dal) along with Jeera (cumin seeds, jeelakarra), asafoetida. Grind them coarsely and not too soft or powder type.  You can also soak a fistful of chana dal in water for sometime (like 15-20 minutes) to add to curry.

3) Now add red chilli powder, salt required for the curry to the above powder and mix them. Add sufficient Oil to it so that it looks like the following photo: The mixture should resemble like a paste.

4) Now take a kadai and add oil to it. Add mustard seeds and let it splutter. Now add asafoetida, jeera and green chillies to it.

5) Add the winter melon chopped pieces and also the soaked chana dal. Add turmeric to it and cover and cook for two minutes. Winter melon here (USA) cooks very fast, so be mindful of the time you are cooking it. Keep it for less than two minutes. If you are attempting this curry in other places (like India), then cover and cook for sometime until the winter melon pieces are half cooked.

6) Now add the dals mixture we prepared. Add 2-3 cups of water (add more until the dals are totally soaked). Cover and cook for 5 -10 minutes, by stirring in between. If the gravy is becoming very thick, then add some water again. keep it on stove till the dals mixture is cooked properly. Oil will float on top once the dals and melon are cooked. Adjust the salt (or citric acid) and chilli powders if required. Switch off the stove and take it in a serving bowl. Add tadka on top of the curry with Oil, mustard seeds and red chillies.

The best combination of this curry is to have it with Rice, mudda pappu and challa pulusu. You can eat the curry just with rice and it will taste good.
Note:
1) If you like the tangy taste then I would recommend adding less salt and add citric acid. This will give a special taste to the curry.
2) You can do the same curry with Dosakaya (Indian cucumber-yellow) by replacing the winter melon with dosakaya in the above curry recipe.

Let me know how the recipe turns out. Also please let me know if I am missing something.