Showing posts with label Lau. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lau. Show all posts

Monday, June 22, 2020

Lau Ghonto with Bori and Lau Chingri

BottleGourd with Bori and BottleGourd with Shrimp...


Lau Ghonto Bori diye, Lau Ghonto, Bottlegourd Sabzi with Vadi

Lau Ghonto Bori diye | Bottlegourd Sabzi with Vadi

Lau Ghonto is a popular Bengali vegetarian dish for the summer months made with Bottlegourd that has been chopped fine and garnished with fried Bori. There is also a non-veg version of this dish, Lau Chingri, where fried shrimp is mixed with the dish.



This post was first done in 2008 when I was pregnant with LilSis. Given that my pregnancies were never an easy affair, I don't know how I made a Lau Ghonto and posted a recipe then. The Recipe and photos updated on June 22, 2020.
I have been eating real simple these days, simple food not laced with too many rich spices or garlic and onion seems to have become my favorite. It is still spring here but my food cravings are like those served in my home during the hot summer months.
Summer veggies like Lau(Bengali)/Lauki(Hindi)/Bottle gourd, Parwal, Green mangoes have caught my fancy. These veggies prepared with simple spices and no onion or garlic and a light fish curry is what is staple food, in most Bengali homes in the Gangetic Plains where summer is hot and humid.




Green View from my Kitchen


Is it the green all around that makes me long for these veggies ? Before the days of air conditioned grocery stores and easy availability of exotic veggies, vegetables in the local markets were seasonal in India. So while winter was colored with deep red beet-root, orange carrots and rich red tomatoes, summer was green with deep green striped parwal, mellowed green bottle gourd, vivid rich green of cucumber and smooth green of raw mangoes.

Lau Ghonto Bori diye, Lau Ghonto, Bottlegourd Sabzi with Vadi
Chopped Lau/Bottlegourd

The tender lau or bottle gourd with its soothing green skin soothes the eyes in harsh summer and because of its high water content has a cooling effect and so is one of the preferred veggies in the summer months.
According to ayurveda, the cooked bottlegourd is cooling, diuretic, sedative and anti­bilious(corrects secretion of bile). It gives a feeling of relaxation after eating it. It is rich in essential minerals and fibre.

Lau Ghonto Bori diye, Lau Ghonto, Bottlegourd Sabzi with Vadi

Lau Ghonto

I am sharing this veggie and the dish with Laurie from Mediterranean Cooking in Alaska who is hosting WHB, originated by Kalyn, this week



The bottle gourd was used in several different kinds of dishes in my home ranging from the dal, the lau-ghonto which I think was made with milk and usually white in color, another lau-ghonto with fish head, the lau ghonto with bori where the dish was garnished with fried moong dal vadis, the lau-chingri where the shrimp was mixed with the dish to dress up the simple homely dish.

The recipe of Lau Bori and Lau Chingri here is as my Ma made it.

Recipe and photos updated on June 22, 2020.

Lau Ghonto with Bori


Ingredients


Lauki/Bottlegourd ~ 3 cups. Peeled and chopped in small pieces. You need to cut the bottlegourd in really small & thin pieces, large chunks are a NO NO.
Tomato ~1 medium finely chopped in small pieces
Green Chilli ~ 3-4 slit through the middle. I use hot Indian Geen Chillies
Ginger - 1" piece

For Tempering

Bay Leaves ~ 2 small
Cinnamon Stick ~ 1” stick
Whole Jeera/Cumin seeds ~ ½ tsp

Wet Masala Paste

Cumin seeds - 1.5 tsp Cumin seeds
Ginger - 1" ginger chopped ~ 1 Tbsp

With a sprinkle of water make a paste of cumin and ginger in a mortar-pestle.

Note: If you cannot make a fresh paste like as I said, then grate the ginger and mix with 1 tsp of Cumin powder to make a paste

Dry Spice powders

Red Chilli Powder ~ 1/2 tsp or according to your spice level. I go with the green hot chillies and do not use any chilli powder.
Turmeric Powder ~ about 1 tsp

Sugar ~ 1/2 tsp or none if you don’t like it sweet
Salt ~ to taste
Oil

For garnish

Bori ~ 1/4th Cup of Moong Dal Bori fried and crumbled. If you do not have any Bori, you might skip it. The Bengali Vadis are known as Boris and are small sun dried cones of lentil paste, the shapes are like Hershey's Kisses. Here is a recipe of boris made of Urad Dal. These boris are fried and then added to the dish.
Coriander Leaves ~ a fistful finely chopped


How I Did It

Heat Oil in a Kadhai/Frying Pan.

Fry the Bori/Vadi till it is a nice warm rich brown. Remove and keep aside

Temper the oil with Bay leaf, Cinnamon Stick and Whole Cumin seeds
When the cumin starts sputtering add the finely chopped tomato and green chillies.
Sauté till the tomatoes are soft and mushy with no raw smell.

Add the wet masala paste of ginger-cumin. Saute the masala for 2 minutes. Sprinkle some water if necessary

Add the chopped bottle gourd and mix with the spices. Sauté for 3-4 minutes.
Add Turmeric powder, salt and mix well

Once you have mixed it nicely, cover and cook. Intermittently remove the cover and give it a good stir. You don’t need to add water as bottle gourd releases water on cooking. If the bottlegourd is dried up or not that fresh you may need to add little water while cooking.

When the bottlegourd/lau is fully cooked, add sugar and cook for a minute. The water should have dried up by now and the result would be a dish with no gravy but moist.

Now crumble the fried bori on top
Garnish with fresh coriander leaves


Lau Chingri aka Bottle Gourd with Shrimp

Lau Chingri, Lau Ghonto, Bottlegourd Sabzi with Vadi

Everything is same as the Lau-Bori recipe. Except for the Bori you need about ½ cup of shrimp. Wash the shrimp and mix with a little turmeric and salt and let it marinade for 30 minutes. Fry them to a light yellow and remove and keep aside. Cook Bottlegourd exactly as above. Instead of the bori, mix the shrimp with the bottlegourd at the second last step. Sauté for a minute and you are done.


Other recipes of similar Bengali Lau er Tarkari:

Tetor Dal with BitterGourd and BottleGourd



Trivia: Ektara the most ancient form of string instrument found in the Eastern parts of India, is constructed out of a half of a dried gourd shell serving as the sound-box, with a metal string running right through the middle of the shell. The Ektara was used by the Bauls of Bengal for their folk singing

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Moog Dal Chora diye Lau -- Lauki complemented with roasted Moog Dal

Today is not really a day to write about Lau. I have my sniffles. The temperature is more like Fall than Summer. There is no way that I need a vegetable to cool me down. I am cold already. But this recipe had been cooked and written way back in the heat of summer. With the surfeit of Lau in my blog around that time, I probably gave this a miss.I better post it I thought before the temperature drops further and eating bowlfuls of hot soup in warm jackets make much more sense than eating a lauki.



The lauly thoughts that both my daughters are having these days also pushed me to be done with all lau recipes for this year.

Couple days back, I was home with LS. The big sis was in school and we were supposed to go and drop off something at her school.

On the way to school LS said : Ami Didi ke shobcheye bhalobashi(I love Didi most)
Me, with a flutter in my heart: Ar amake ? (And Me?)
LS confidently : Tomake Medium !!

I did not dare to ask her to elaborate on this further. It was only a month back that she suggested that I live in a separate house and she would come and visit me only in the evenings. She had tried to assure me that it would be just fine and she would play hide and seek when she came by. You might be wondering about my maternal traits and what I do to that child but trust me I am okay and not really all that bad.
Honestly reading a lot of Mom blogs I often have futile hopes that the girls will spout niceties about me  which I can put on proud display here. That apparently is not happening.

But I will keep at it for looks like there is hope lurking somewhere.

Big Sis did have something nice to say about me by the way. For their Back to School night they were to write an autobiography. And on that night, we, the parents, were supposed to read it. Big Sis had "smart, nice and hard working" for her Dad and for me the adjectives were "nice" and "luminous". Now clearly I had expected something more than just plain nice; I love words like fabulous, awesome etc. as adjectives.But it was the luminous that actually threw me off.

Me: Why do you think I am luminous ?
BS: Errr...because you are bright.
Ahem. With the scarcity of compliments around here I will grab anything that comes my way.



Now to the Moog Dal Chora diye Lau which is very different from Lau diye Moog Dal.

Confused ? Con-foo-sed ?

Well in the latter, that is in Lau diye Moog dal, the dal plays the main role and the bottle gourd is just an add on. The recipe for that kind of dal is almost similar to the Tetor Dal , yellow moong dal cooked with bitter gourd and lauki, in our home.

In the former it is the bottlegourd--the lauki--which makes the dish with the dal complementing it. The Moog Dal er Chora means a sprinkle of Moog Dal which accentuates the dish but you can really call it by any other name and increase or decrease the proportion of lentils. Some homes use very little moog dal, literally a sprinkle and cook it along with the gourd while my Mother makes it this way. My Ma makes both of these very often and we like the Moog Dal Chora diye Lau a lot around our home.


Thursday, June 07, 2012

Lau er Malaikari -- not by andaaz

Like 99.99% of middle class Indian Parents my parents have or at least had an unswerving faith in education. They also had an almost blind belief in the Indian education system and honestly in the late 70's when I started school it was not such a bad one. I mean yes it did not allow exploring or free thinking but it provided wholesome disciplined learning and that suited me fine. I was never the kind to drop out and start Facebook after all.

LauMalaikari4

My Mother never forced me to study in so many words, neither did she send me for tuition or spank me with a haatpakha if I refused to do homework. However it was somehow understood that the only thing I was expected to do reasonably well was study, academically and rank at least amongst the first three in class. I was one of those boring, obedient kind of child who would rather study school books than study the lifestyle of an ant and so the deal suited me fine. It probably helped that I also could read as many fictional novels under that pretext.

To make it easier for me and also maybe because Ma stayed home and had some sort of help, very little was expected of me regarding household chores. Of course there were set things I did but nothing major and hardly anything in the kitchen."Ekhon porashuno korar shomoy", she would insist that this was a time for studying.

My Ma did not think cooking was something that needed to be taught early on. She believed it was a skill anyone could pick up when the time was right and according to her there was a lifetime left for me to learn those. In absence of Food Network and amidst drudgery of home-cooking she clearly did not put a lot of value to it. I guess she liked it given that she was always cooking one thing or the other, setting up 2 kinds of breakfast and a minimum of 4 dishes for dinner, experimenting and never delegating a meal to a cook. But what I mean is she never thought "cooking food at home" was an important thing. Nothing that demanded accolades, appraisals and a year end bonus. In those times phrases like "Cooking is therapeutic" or "Cooking brings me close to home" were not flung around freely.It was not really a choice, rather a necessity, something you did to feed family. There was no getting away from it. Period. If you loved it good for you, if not bad for the family.

So  I got away with cooking maggi in almost raw mustard oil at 12 and was heavily applauded by Baba for making a simple cup of tea at 13. Cooking was not expected of me.

Food though was something I loved and was often chided for my finicky tastes. My kaku, uncle had once said that I should get married to a rich restauranteur because though I would never want to cook myself, I preferred to eat well and in my own terms.

LauMalaikari5

But as they say "Life comes a full circle" and there came a time in life when it was cooking that became worthy enough for me to spend a major chunk of my time and energy for. And wonder, wonder I even liked it. As my Ma had said it wasn't too hard to pick up either, if you kept an eager mind.

When I first started my blog I don't think I even mentioned it to my parents. It was a minor thing. He..e..l..l..o it was about cooking. Home cooking at that. They would think "What was so great about it", I thought. But because I wrote about my daughter I gave my Dad the link to read up anecdotes about his granddaughter when they were thousand miles away. It was just one more means for connecting in the modern world.

LauMalaikari6

Soon they got hooked and they would now read the blog often, if not regularly. Baba would sit in front of his desktop later at night, the phone would be off the hook, the wire connected for dial-in and over a slow ethernet connection they would read whatever part of the blog decided to load. Okay, I might be romanticizing and he might actually be checking Facebook instead of reading my darn blog.

My Ma would discuss recipes that I had blogged or could blog. She would sometimes cook something from the blog and tell me so. Of course 90% of the recipes there were hers so I am not sure why she would do that. Maybe to make me feel good or something.

I would discuss some of the e-mails, readers sent, with them.Baba would share pics of the vegetable market he had  taken with the blog in mind. 

But my Ma never wrote a recipe for the blog for the simple reason that she does not believe in boundaries of cups, teaspoons and tablespoons. While cooking she never measures, always relying on her perfect sense of andaaz, her fingers trusted to pick up the right pinch. I mean which Indian home cook measures their ginger, and it was okay. If she told me ektu jire..I cooked it at home and replaced ektu with 1 tsp only if I was to blog. Else I too relied on my "pinch". A week or so back I told her that what with the work on the book and the impending summer vacation I don't get time to update the blog as often as I liked and it would be nice if she send me post ready recipes.

"But I don't measure..like you", she panicked.

 "Err..well you could. It doesn't have to be precise to 3 digits after the decimal but anything to give an idea.", I said.

LauMalaikari2_Flickr

Yesterday, with a "ping" an e-mail landed in my mailbox. The subject said "Lau er Malaikari" -- Bottlegourd cooked in Coconut Milk. and the body had the recipe written in Bangla with the cinnamon measured to an inch. It was a recipe Ma had seen on TV and tried at home. There was a picture to boot. It was overwhelming to say the least. I have come a long way but so has my Mother. From "ektu Darchini" to Darchini -- 1", it has been a long walk.

That single status on FB got more likes than even my Book announcement. Thank you so much for this and though I rarely say corny lines in public, Thank You Ma and yes you too Baba.







LauMalaikari1_Flickr


Lau er Malaikari -- Bottlegourd in coconut Milk

 

1. Lau/Bottlegourd --  dumo dumo kore kata/cubed 4 cups ( 24/ 25 cubes ).

2. Onion 1- paste kora. Add couple of green chili to this if you like it hot.

3. Choto elaichi/ Green Cardamom - 4

4. Dalchini/Cinnamon  - 1" inch

5. Labanga/Clove - 4/5

6. Ginger paste -  1 table spoon.

7. Tejpata - 1

8. Red chili - 2.
9. Coconut Milk - 1 cup
10. Sugar -2 tea spoon
 11. Salt - to your taste

12.Vegetable Oil -- for cooking
13. Ghee -- 1 tsp to drizzle at the end.
================
Prathame karai te sada tel ( oil ) debe, garam hole ote tejpata ,sukno lanka, garam masala phoron debe. Tarpore onion paste & sugar  diye ektu fry korbe. Tarpore ote lau ta diye fry korbe, gas sim kore. Ebar ote salt diye dhaka ( lid ) diye dao. Lau sedhho ( boil ) hoe gele ote ginger paste diye debe.Ebar ektu nere niye ( stir ) ote coconut milk mix kore, abar ektu dhaka diye rakhbe. Tarpore ektu makha makha  kore gas theke nabiye nebe. Opor theke ektu Ghee diye serve korbe.

*******************

Heat Oil in a wok. Temper the oil with tejpata, dry red chili and the whole garam masala( cardamom, clove and cinnamon)

Next add onion paste and fry with a tsp of sugar. When there is no raw smell of onion add the cubed lau and saute at low heat.

Add salt, cover and let the lau cook .

Once the lau is done add the ginger paste and fry for a minute. Add the coconut milk and let the gravy simmer and come to a boil. The dish will have a clinging gravy and when that consistency is reached switch off heat. Drizzle little ghee on it and serve with rice.
 *******************


Some other blogs where parents share space with their blogger offspring 


Kalyan's FinelyChopped 

Shilpa's Aayis Recipes 

Nag's Edible Garden


Mandira's Ahaar  -- with podcasts from her parents

Monday, June 04, 2012

Lau er Khosha Bhaja -- for a lauly lunch

LauKhosha4

Around 12 years ago, a then two or maybe three year old nephew of mine, in his freshly minted knowledge of English had said

"God is Lau"

I think he meant "Love". Or maybe not.

I am never sure of such stuff.

Everytime I cook a lau--the lauki -- the bottlegourd, I think of that line and try to search for some deeper meaning.

But he also went around saying "God is GodParmesh" which I THINK does not deliver any profound message. Or maybe does.

LauKhosha1
The Bong's lazy and apparently wrong way of chopping bottlegourd peel

The bottlegourd---the one we call lau is a favorite summer vegetable for the bangali. It is a beautiful shade of green that captures your senses in the baked brown heat of an Indian Summer. Top it with its cooling qualities and high water content,and you have a veggie that is brought back from the haat every other day along with two more favored summer veggies -- potol and jhinge. By the time the hottest summer is over Bengalis are only too glad to tuck away their lau recipes and look around for a fulkopi.

Everytime my Ma made a Lau, she saved away the peel, the lau er khosha, to make a quick stir fry. She did a similar thing with potato skins. No points for guessing which I liked better.

Friday on a whim I saved the lau er khosha -- the peel. It is not a regular feature. Mostly I am lazy and throw it away. This time I didn't. I did not chop it fine though as is the norm. I have little patience with such things. The kitchen Nazi husband was aghast. "Jhiri Jhiri kata hoy ni!", he bemoaned. The peels are not julienned being the essence.

I ignored and posted the pic of the bottle gourd peels which were not "jhiri-jhiri" on my FB blog page. Well it turned out 99% of Bengalis were as aghast as the kitchen Nazi husband. Most of my blog readers are very polite and so they protested only meekly. I stir fried my un-jhirijhiri peels with kalonji and dry red chili. They tasted fine enough.

LauKhosha3
The Bong's right way of chopping bottlegourd peel

The next morning the husband who was obviously itching to get the peels done right got hold of another bottlegourd. He peeled strips of the pale green peel in three-quarter of an inch width and piled them high. Then he chopped them fine along the width -- jhiri jhiri. Everyone breathed relief. I made the stir fry again. It tasted the same. I guess if the skin or peel is a tough one the fine cut is necessary else the peel might burn before it gets fully cooked. In this case the peel was soft and tender and both ways worked.

But I dare not tell a Bong that. If it is Lau er Khosha -- they want it jhiri jhiri.



Peel the skin of a bottlegourd. Chop it in julienne. There will very little peel from a single gourd, I had only 1/4 cup of it.

Wash it well. Now toss it with little salt and turmeric powder. Keep aside for 10 mins.

Heat 1 tsp Mustard Oil

Temper oil with 1/4 tsp Kalo Jeera(Kalonji) and 2 Dry Red Chili

Drain any excess water from the peels and add it to above. Now saute the peel at medium high heat. Sprinkle water as needed.

Add sugar and salt to taste. Go easy on the salt as you added some earlier. Sprinkle some poppy seeds on top and cook till the skin has softened and is cooked.The poppy seed is optional.

Variations:

A variation from Reshmi Bose as suggested on Facebook: Temper with Kalo jeera, sliced garlic and one green chili

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Dudh diye Lau -- one more Gourd Dish




It has been almost a month since the summer vacations started for BS and as far as I can see it, she is having a blast. For one, she is doing NOTHING on most days. Half of her day is spent at the neighbor's place, the second half of the day little neighbor friend spends at our place. I have no clue what they do other than eating a lot of ice lollies and blowing bubbles.

Then there is the numerous park visits with Dadai, about three parties that involved water slide, sprinklers, pool and such, a New York visit and stay at Times Square, couple of visits to the beach, lots of book reading and football watching, staying up late until 10:30 at night. The days are packed to the brim with nothingness.

To bring some semblance to her day I made up a routine involving some study and stuff for an hour each day. When I call up from work to ask whether she has done her day's quota of writing or math or piano, she says she couldn't as she has been "off schedule". Does that even make sense ?

This whole NOTHINGNESS of summer is so addictive that I wish I had a long summer vacation, a real one where I would do nothing but lick ice lollies and read books and blow bubbles.

I wish...

When I think of summer vacation from those days of childhood long past, I can't remember any single one. My childhood summers have just merged into one another, blended into one colorful blob.

I remember....

...the swing that Baba had hung up on the guava tree, the swing fashioned from a wooden plank and hung on narkele dori(coconut choirs). The friend who got hurt when the wooden plank hit her nose when one of us had jumped off the swing midway. Two days later we continued swinging up high, the friend's nose healed.

...rummaging through the huge black storage trunk, digging up Anandamelas and Enid Blytons, to re read.

...the mustachioed ice cream man with his military hat and shorts shouting "Golden" on Sunday afternoon. We called him Bhagat Singh. The orange ice cream bar that I always bought while Ma insisted that I get a Milk bar.

...the couple of weeks at my Dida's place. The visits to Dakshineshwar Temple and the boat ride to Belur. The coolness at the Birla Planetarium and the happiness browsing books at College Street

...writing pages of Hindi in big letters, trying to fit not more than 3 words a line to finish the summer homework. Writing pages of English, cramming as much in a page to finish the same.

What do you remember from your summer vacation ?




Lauki/Lau or Bottle Gourd is a favorite summer vegetable with the Bengalis. It is supposed to have a cooling effect in the summer heat and so a light lauki sabzi or lau tarkari would pop up ever so often during the summer days. My Ma would cook the simple bottle gourd several ways, each lightly spiced, perfect as a summer side dish.

This particular one cooked with milk, the Dudh diye Lau is slightly on the sweet side and one I have never cooked before. I learned it from Ma while she is here and cooked it this Saturday. It is as I said, light, slightly sweet, perfect as a side dish with rice for a light Summer home lunch. Do not expect an explosion of taste when you eat it, it is humble and meek, perfect for your satwik senses.


Read more...





Dudh diye Lau


Peel and Chop a decent sized Bottle Gourd in small cubes




Cook about 4 cups of cubed Bottle Gourd or Lauki without water and a little salt till done. No need to add water as the Bottle Gourd will release a lot of water while cooking.






Mix 1/4 cup of Milk with 1 tbsp of All Purpose Flour/Maida to make a smooth paste. Once the Lauki/Gourd is cooked, add the milk paste and mix gently





Heat 2 tsp of Ghee in a Kadhai

Temper with 1 Bay Leaf, 2 Green Cardamom, 1" thin stick of cinnamon, 2 cracked dry Red chili and 1/2 tsp of whole cumin seeds




When the spices pop, add the cooked gourd and saute for a few minutes. Add salt to taste, add about 1/4-1/2 tsp of sugar. We Bengalis like this dish light and sweet.

Keep cooking till the water has almost dried up and there is almost no gravy except the liquid clinging to the veggie




Now there are three ways to garnish
(a) Garnish with fresh grated coconut
(b) Fry vadi and crumble them on top
(c)Fry a papad and crumble on top just before serving -- This is what I have done

Similar Recipes:

Lau Chingri

Lau Bori

Tetor Dal -- Dal with Bitter Gourd and Bottle Gourd