Matira curry: A sweet and spicy watermelon dish with summertime roots
This Rajasthani recipe from Asma Khan’s cookbook, Monsoon, is one to make on these long, sunny days
Of course, there’s no bad time of year to make a curry like this, but what better time than when watermelons abound? As Asma Khan notes in her cookbook, Monsoon: Delicious Indian Recipes for Every Day and Season, matira curry is a sweet and spicy dish with roots in the summers of Rajasthan in northwestern India. Plus it’s a straightforward recipe, which delivers a lot of flavour with little effort — another reason to reach for it on the longest of days.
The following has been reprinted, with permission, from Monsoon: Delicious Indian Recipes for Every Day and Season.
Matira Curry (Red Watermelon Curry)
By Asma Khan
If you can add feta to watermelons and make a salad, you can add chillies and make this quintessentially Rajasthani dish. In an arid and parched land, the people living in the desert of Rajasthan found ways to survive the harsh summer months where very little vegetation grew. The matira curry was a clever way to use the one ingredient that was locally available in abundance–watermelon. My father’s family originally came from Rajasthan and I remember my great grandmother telling me that the hotter the dry, scorching wind blew in the desert, the sweeter the watermelons got! The dish has a sweet and spicy flavour. It can be served as part of a barbecue menu and is a great accompaniment to any meal.
Ingredients
- 4 tbsp vegetable oil
- ½ tsp cumin seeds
- 4 dried whole chillies (medium heat), broken in half
- 4-cm (1½-in) fresh root ginger, finely grated
- ½ tsp ground turmeric
- 150g (5½oz) watermelon, juiced; plus 600–750g (1lb 5oz–1lb 10oz), cubed
- 1½ tsp salt
- 2 tsp sugar (any type)
- 4 tbsp lime juice
- fresh mint, to garnish optional
Preparation
Warm the oil in a karai or wok over a medium heat. Add the cumin seeds, then the broken chillies followed by the grated ginger and turmeric. Immediately add the watermelon juice and stir. Add the salt and sugar, then bring to a low rolling boil. When the juice has reduced by a third, add the watermelon cubes and cook for 4–5 minutes. Stir well, then taste and adjust the seasoning, adding lime juice for acidity.
If you like, you can serve the curry garnished with fresh mint (this would not have been available in summer in Rajasthan, but I like the combination of mint and watermelon).
Serves 6 as a side dish
Excerpted from Monsoon: Delicious Indian Recipes for Every Day and Season by Asma Khan. Copyright © 2025 Asma Khan. Photography by Patricia Niven. Published by DK Publishing, a division of Penguin Random House. Reproduced by arrangement with the Publisher. All rights reserved.
