Did you know we eat the entire Bottle Gourd? Yes, we do. The main vegetable, the seeds, the peels, the shoots, and the leaves. Now bottle gourd is called Lau in Bengali and Ghia, dudhi, or Launki in Hindi.  It’s popular all over India with various methods of cooking.  Just like the pumpkin shell, the bottle gourd shell has various ornamental use too.

It’s a part of the pumpkin family and is one of those veggies which have helped me survive the lockdown. You will ask me why?

Well, the humble bottle gourd you will find growing on roofs of West Bengal countryside. The old and dried bottle gourd is used to make bori.  It’s used as a dried condiment. Its fresh juice is popular due to its pharmacological properties.

It’s cooked as a delicious vegetable side dish. Bengalis cook it both as a vegetarian dish or with shrimps as a non-vegetarian dish.

The best part is this vegetable is versatile, it can be eaten with rice or phulka/roti. We use the vegetable peel as a delicious side dish with rice and even eat the greens and leaves of the bottle gourd plant. That’s the best ways to eat responsibly. Eat the whole vegetable.

Now I will tell you about Bottle gourd cooked as a vegetarian side dish.Its super easy,filling and nutritious requires very little oil ,spices and delicious too.

How to cook the bottle gourd?

Peel the bottle gourd. Keep the peels separately. Now you need to dice the bottle gourd. Once it’s diced, get the spices ready.

Spices:

• Bay leaf,
• cumin whole,
• red chillies(optional)
• Ginger paste or grated
• Haldi/turmeric
• Cumin powder
• Salt to taste

Others ingredients:

Green chillies,tomatoes

Steps of cooking

• You need to heat oil in a big Kadai.
• Mustard oil or sunflower oil works.10ml oil was used for a 1.5Kg bottle gourd. 
• Bay leaf and red chili or green chill, the whole jeera is used to temper the oil.
• You can add the ginger now.
• But I like the extra gingery taste and have added it a little later. Add the diced bottle gourd.
• For a one and a half kilo bottle gourd I use 5mg turmeric,5mg jeera, salt according to taste, ginger paste, tomatoes, green chilies.

The Dont’s

Don’t cover and cook.

Don’t add water .

Don’t cook in high flame .

The tomatoes and the bottle gourd both release a lot of water and it gets cooked slowly. When it’s cooked just right, the water will all be dried.  The bottle gourd will be slightly firm but cooked all the way.It’s spicy from the green chilies, tangy because of the tomatoes with lovely ginger and jeera flavoring.

If bottle gourd is bitter after peeling and cutting,dont eat it. Don’t drink bitter bottle gourd juice.

In my next book coming up, I will be sharing bottle gourd cooked with milk, the nonvegetarian bottle gourd, and the vegetable peel recipe too.  Can you guess what the book is about?

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