Bottle gourd alias “lauki” or “Lau” is one of my favourite vegetables. To my delight, I have found it in the open market here in Netherlands and did not waste time buying. Although Bottle guard can be cooked in the authentic vegetarian way, back home we used to cook it with shrimps which tastes delicious too. However, here I describe the completely vegetarian bottle guard curry recipe with some of the interesting ingredients like “Bori” or dried lentil nuggets. However, it is not absolutely indispensible and the flavour ofLauki is itself self-sufficient. The curry goes equally well both with rice and roti and is a perfect choice for summer menu with a lot of water content in it.

Ingredients to serve 3-4 :

1. Bottle gourd – 1 (small)
2. Potato – 1 (big)
3. Slit green chilli – 2
4. Bori (Sun dried lentil nuggets) – 6-8
5. Cumin seed – 1 teaspoon
6. Turmeric powder – ¼ teaspoon
7. Salt & sugar to taste
8. Chopped coriander leaves – 2 tbspoon heaped
9. Cooking oil – 3 tbspoon

Procedure :

Peel the bottle gourd and cut into very thin slices.

Peel and cut the potato into medium size cubes.

Heat oil in a pan over medium flame and fry the lentil nuggets (bori) into it until they turn brown. Take them out and keep aside. As they cool down a bit, crush them by your hand and make small fragments of them.

Add cumin seeds to the left over oil and let them splutter.

Add potato cubes and fry them lightly with pinch of salt.

Then add bottle gourd slices, green chillies and turmeric powder into it. Fry till water releases from bottle gourd.

Then season with salt and sugar. Cover the pan with a lid and put the gas on low.

As the bottle gourd gets cooked and water dries up, add crushed lentil nuggets (bori) and give it a good stir.

Cook for another couple of minutes and put the gas off when it looks dry.

Now sprinkle over the coriander leaves, mix well and cover the pan for few more minutes.

Serve with rice or roti.

Note :

1. Instead of coriander leaves you can also add ½ tbspoon of ghee and ½ teaspoon of garam masala powder at the end of this recipe. I prefer adding ghee most, but as I didn’t have it in my stock, I added coriander leaves.
2. Sun dried lentil nuggets or Bori are readily available in market. You can use them. Or it can be easily prepared at home. I will post the recipe soon. 🙂