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Bottle Gourd: Did you know we eat the entire vegetable?

Bottle gourd,lau,lauki cooked ,recipe

Bottle gourd,lau,lauki cooked ,recipe

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.

Bottle gourd /Lauki /Lau:Quick easy Healthy Recipe

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:

Others ingredients:

Green chillies,tomatoes

Steps of cooking a bottle gourd

Steps of cooking

Bottle gourd,lau,lauki cooked ,recipe

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.

Growing Bottle Gourd in our Vegetable garden

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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