Lau Chingri

Lau Chingri is a quintessential Bengali side dish, enjoyed quite often during summer days. “Lau” is bottle gourd and “Chingri” is shrimp and the combination works beautifully with very minimal spices. It’s a delicacy in West Bengal, a comfort food when paired with steamed white rice.

Lau Chingri is a quick 30 minutes meal:

Lau Chingri is a great summer time meal as bottle gaurd has high water content making it easy to digest keeping your tummy calm during peak summer days. 

The ingredients for Lau Chingri are also very simple and minimal: 

• Bottle Gourd
• Medium size shrimp
• Potatoes
• Bay leaf
• Paanch Phoron (Indian Five Spice – Link to the recipe)
• Cumin powder
• Cilantro leaves
• Green chili
• Salt
• Sugar – helps to bring out the flavor of the bottle gaurd
• Oil (preferably mustard oil)

Lau Chingri is a quick ONE POT STIR FRIED DISH that is light on the tummy! (WATCH THE VIDEO)

Bottle gourd is known as doodhi/ lauki in north of India, also sometimes refers to as long melon. It’s a vegetable with high water content making me smooth for your tummy. It’s also because of the high-water content, this vegetable is used a lot during summer months. You can read about the benefit of Bottle Gourd in this link 

Lau Chingri is one of my favorite dish to eat with this vegetable. As for my husband, he loved lauki kofta!

VEGETARIAN VERSION OF LAU CHINGRI:

• A typical way to switch Lau Chingri to a vegetarian version is by cooking it with lentils. Yellow lentils, mung daal to be precise, is another common summer dish.
• By adding shrimp and removing the dal, the dish turns into a non-vegetarian dish dish.
• You can just potatoes too or add some other vegetables like cauliflower or carrots.

If you cannot find bottle gourd, you can prepare the exact same Lau Chingri using zucchini instead of bottle gourd. 

If you look closely a lot of Bengali dishes, they don’t add any cilantro garnish. But in this dish, a good handful of cilantro leaves simply elevates the flavor. It’s not added just for garnish. So, you do need a good handful.

COOKING THE SHRIMP:

You can stir fry the shrimp at first and then keep it aside to be added later to the pan for a quick mix.

I prefer this simpler step of making it one pot and cooking it along with the bottle gourd. This is mainly because I always fear to overcook shrimp. Once it turns pink and curls up, it’s done. Do not overcook it to taste like rubber.

The Key Ingredient for Lau Chingri dish is bottle gourd and a good quality will make all the difference.

When you buy, look for pale green smooth skin. It should feel firm and shouldn’t have any blemishes on the skin.

Tender bottle gourds taste the best. When you cut open the bottle gourd, if the seeds looks too big and almost comes out, then definitely discard the center portion as it might not taste that good.

Lau Chingri is a easy summer dish that is light on the tummy and super quick to prepare.

Lau Chingri

Yield: Serves 4

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Lau Chingri is a quintessential Bengali side dish, enjoyed quite often during summer days. “Lau” is bottle gourd and “Chingri” is shrimp and the combination works beautifully with very minimal spices. It’s a delicacy in West Bengal, a comfort food when paired with steamed white rice.

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Ingredients

• 1 bottle gourd
• 2 medium size potatoes
• 2 cups medium size raw shrimp (deveined, shell and
• tail removed)
• ¼ cup finely chopped fresh cilantro leaves
• 3 fresh green chili, trimmed at the edge or slit in half (if you want it spicier)
• mustard oil - 1 tablespoon
• 1 to 2 bay leaves
• paanch phoron (Bengali five spice) - 1 teaspoon
• salt - 1 teaspoon
• turmeric - ½ teaspoon
• sugar - ½ teaspoon
• cumin powder - 1 teaspoon

Instructions

1. Peel the bottle gourd
2. Cut thin circular slices. If the bottle gourd is not tender and has big seeds, discard the center. Make multiple stacks and thinly slice like matchsticks.
3. Peel the potatoes and cut into small bite size pieces.
4. Place a wok or a saucepan in medium high heat. Pour the oil and once it heats up drop the bay leaf and the paanch phoron. Stir it around for few seconds.
5. Scatter the potato, sprinkle half the salt and turmeric. Stir around and let it fry for 2 minutes.
6. Then drop the bottle gourd, sprinkle remaining of the salt, turmeric and sugar. Stir it around. Cover and let it cook for 10 minutes.
7. After 10 minutes, it will soften and start to loose moisture. Sprinkle the cumin powder and cook for 2 minutes.
8. Scatter the shrimp, cilantro leaves, green chili. Stir it around and let it cook for 4 minutes or just until the shrimp has curled and turned pink. Taste for salt and add any if needed.
9. Serve it warm with steamed rice.