Showing posts with label Squash. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Squash. Show all posts

Monday, June 04, 2012

Lau er Khosha Bhaja -- for a lauly lunch

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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.

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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.

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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

Monday, October 31, 2011

Butternut Squash Soup with Red Curry paste

It snowed. In October. After Diwali and Before Halloween, even before daylight saving set in. And all because when I heard of Colorado having a "White Diwali" I thought to myself "Thank God, I don't live in Colorado".

Yes, go ahead and blame me for this freak of nature. And the worst part is it happened on a Saturday instead of a lovely Monday when it would have served the perfect excuse for not turning up at work.

What it meant is staying home all through Saturday though, which is not necessarily a good thing when six people of different ages are in the picture. Unable to venture out and in absence of carving experts, the kids decorated their pumpkin which actually meant LS pouring glitter glue over anything BigSis attempted to do. This ensured in a lot of screaming and horrific activities best suited for Halloween night.

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Then was the issue of the Halloween costume. I have nothing against them really and I love 3-4 year olds in their cute ladybug and tinker bell fairy dresses. But the deluge of princesses has done me in. I have had my fair quota of them and I put my feet down this year, very firmly. "Be a scientist", I told BigSis, as if it was that easy. I was actually thinking of an over-sized coat and glasses from the dollar store and thus a one dollar costume.
She however refused. "I only know of Edison, Newton(yes, the apple guy and btw the hand washing scientist was Ignaz Semmelweis) and Einstein and they are all guys. I don't know of any girl scientist and so I won't dress up as one" was her logic. And she didn't want any tom-dick-sally scientist, she wanted famous female scientists and all I could think of was Madame Curie and finally Jane Goodall.

These are the times I really wish that I should have gone for that Nobel Prize. Okay, the Ig Nobel at least. Darn it.

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Hee Haw

Finally she decided to dress up as an artist, a painter to be precise.She made her own costume from an old white T-shirt, made a palette from a brown cardboard, borrowed the beret from grandpa and looked perfectly the part. The little one just wanted to be a frog. At her age Frogs are far more charming than any handsome prince.

So the painter and the frog collected enough candies to start their own retail site jailibeen.com. Anyone interested please sign up and order.

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In midst of all this there was Butternut Squash of course made into a soup which people feared to tread upon. Once they did though they agreed it was pretty good if not "very good" or "the best soup on earth good". At least it was good, next time it will be better and then one fine day it will be the bestest soup in the universe. Go try. Measures are rough and add coconut milk if you have some.

Heat 2 tsp of Olive Oil

Add 1/2 tsp of minced garlic, saute for half a minute. Add 1/4 cup of chopped onion, 2 green chili slit and saute till onion is softened.

Add 2 tsp of Thai Red Curry paste and saute for 2 minutes with sprinkle of water. Next add 1 tsp of curry Powder, 1 tsp of All Spice(optional). Add about 2-3 cups of chopped b.squash and 1 small apple peeled and chopped. Saute for 4-5 minutes till spices coat the squash nicely.

Now add about 3 cups of warm water(substitute with thinned coconut milk), 1 tsp of lime zest, salt to taste, sugar to taste and let the b.squash cook in it. Puree and bring it back to boil again.

Meanwhile saute some shrimp with sprinkle of salt and pepper.

Once the soup is ready add some lime juice, fresh black pepper and the sauted shrimp. Give it a simmer for a minute. Serve hot.

Serve this soup with chunks of some good bread on the side or some pasta tossed in butternut squash if you will.

Go here for more recipes on pasta sauce.