Lau Bori (Bengali Bottlegord Curry with Vadi)

This is such a simple dish and can be whipped up in less than 30 minutes. After trying all these Bengali recipes here is my high level summary: most of the vegetarian curries (that I tried) do not have onion or garlic and are tempered with spices like cinnamon stick and/ or bay leaf and seasoned with grated ginger Bengalis absolutely love their poppy seeds. Well this curry doesn’t include poppy seed action, but the other 2 points from my summary hold true. This is another recipe that I got from Sandeepa’s Bong cookbook and I followed the recipe to the T.

Ingredients:

Bottle gourd – 1 medium, peeled and chopped into ¼” pieces
Tomato – 2 medium, finely chopped
Ginger – 1 tsp, grated
Green chilies – 2-3
Ground Cumin – ½ tsp
Red chili powder – ½ tsp
Turmeric – ¼ tsp
Moong dal vadi – ½ cup, fried until golden brown
Salt – to taste

For tempering:
Bay leaves – 2
Cinnamon stick – 1” piece
Cumin seeds – ½ tsp

Method:

• Heat 1tbsp oil in a sauté pan; add the tempering ingredients and once the seeds start to splutter, add the tomatoes and cook covered until they turn mushy.
• Add chopped bottle gourd and turmeric and sauté for 2 minutes.
• Next add ground cumin, red chili powder and salt.
• Cover and cook, stirring once in a while, until the veggie is completely cooked and the curry is dry, takes about 15 minutes.
• Crumble the fried vadi on top and serve with steamed rice.

Lets see what my fellow marathoners have been cooking up today.
Curry in a hurry under 30 min: Aarthi, Divya, Jayashree, Kaveri, Pavani,
Seven Days of Indian Sweets:Gayathri, Priya Suresh,
Seven Days of Microwave Meals: Monika,
Seven Days of Regional Specials:Harini, Vaishali, Suma, PJ
Seven Days of Colorful Dishes Kid's Special: Kalyani
Summer Coolers: Jayasree, Kamalika, Srivalli