Niramish Lau er Torkari Bori diye (Bottle Gourd Sabji with Sun-dried Lentil Dumplings)

Bottle gourd or lauki is one of the most disliked and dreaded-by-all kind of vegetable, as per my knowledge. I have seen people avoiding this vegetable and with the kids it is even worse. When I was working in Delhi NCR, I saw the locals cooking lauki with tomatoes, onions, and ginger, among other ingredients. My friend's daughter used to skip her dinner every time this sabji was there in the menu. 😀

On the contrary, I really like different type of gourds among which bottle gourd or lauki is a prominent member. In fact, I buy it every time I see. We call it lau in Bengali. It comes either in round or in cylindrical shape, at least I have not seen anything else apart from these two. In a Bengali house, people love their lau and we cook a lot of dishes using this apparently infamous vegetable. For example, lau can be cooked with chingri maach (lau chingri or bottle gourd with shrimps), with bhaja mug er dal (with roasted yellow moong dal), with bori and aloo (with potato and sun dried lentil dumplings), with posto (lau posto or bottle gourd with poppy seeds), with bitters (lau shukto or bottle gourd with bitter gourd), with koi maach (with climbing perch fish), and in a milk based gravy (doodh lau). Phew! Too many of them isn't it? Actually, we cook and eat the lauki peels and the tender lauki leaves and stems too! Very different, right? The Bengali cuisine boasts of the philosophy "waste not want not". 😊

Fun fact: There is a famous Bengali folk song, "sadher lau banailo morey boiragi", you can Google it up too! It translates to this roughly, "My dear bottle gourd made me an anchorite". I hope it is evident to you all now about our love for this vegetable! 😊

Lastly, we all know how much nutritional values bottle gourd has! It is excellent for weight loss, heart health, stress, urinary tract disorders, liver health and has a low glycemic index, which means it is good for the diabetics. Although most of you may not like consuming this, I can suggest you some ways which makes the vegetable quite delectable and hence there won't be any trouble to make your family consume this. This time I thought of giving you an easy recipe to begin with. This is a vegan and diabetic friendly recipe and tastes great with plain roti and whole wheat parathas. Going forward, I will share the different types of dishes we make at home with bottle gourd. The trick here is to buy a kochi lau (tender bottle gourd) so that the taste is not compromised. The important thing here is to remember that a kochi lau will not have seeds in it.

Ingredients:

Lauki/ bottle gourd - 1 medium, peeled and diced into cubes
Aloo/ Potatoes - 2 small or 1 medium, peeled and diced into cubes (diabetics can skip this)
Bori/ sun dried lentil dumplings - 9-10 small pieces/ 7-8 big pieces
Jeera/ cumin seeds - 1 teaspoon
Oil - 1.5 tablespoon
Haldi/ Turmeric powder - 1.5 teaspoon
Sugar - 1 teaspoon (diabetics can skip this)
Salt - as required
Dried red chillies - 2 whole
Bay leaves - 1
Lukewarm Water - 250-300 ml (or as required)

Procedure:

Heat oil in a pan, and add the bori. Fry for two minutes by stirring and flipping the sides. When it turns golden-brown, remove it on a plate. In the same oil, add the cumin seeds, bay leaf and the dried red chillies. When the cumin seeds begin to splutter, add the cubes of potatoes and saute for a minute on high heat. Keep stirring else it may get burnt. Add the cubed lauki in it and give it a good mix. this too should be done on high heat. Add turmeric powder, sugar and some salt and mix well. Make sure it gets evenly distributed while cooking. Keep on stirring and cooking. This will take around three minutes or so. Now add some water, mix well, and then cover the pan with a lid to let it cook inside on medium flame. After around 10 minutes, remove the lid, and again mix well and by this time, the potatoes will be half done. I would suggest you to check after five minutes to see if the water has evaporated or not. If so, add some more water and cover the pan again. Now add rest of the water and the crushed fried bori to this, give it a nice mix. Cover and cook till done. Do remember checking if the sabji is sticking to the pan in between. It should not burn. If you see it is sticking, splash some water and let it cook again. Continue this till the sabji is fully done and is ready to serve!