Chaal Potol

Potol (pointed gourd) in a silky sauce with perfumed rice, cashews and raisins—a recipe for special occasions

  • Cooking time
    50 minutes
  • Calories
    kcal
Recommended by
97.2
%
of
11031
viewers who rated this recipe on Youtube

Chaal potol is my mother's specialty that she makes on special occasions in the summer months—specially for Noboborsho or Poila Baishakh lunch, or when we are expecting guests. Potol or pointed gourd is cooked with short-grained, perfumed rice like Gobindobhog, and garnished with raisins and cashew for an extra flourish.

Books in this recipe

No items found.
Like the work we do? Help keep this site ad-free by making a donation.
Donate

Ingredients

Serves
5 servings
  • 500 g potol
  • 250 g potatoes
  • 50 g tomato
  • 50 g gobindobhog rice
  • 15 g cashew nuts
  • 15 g raisins
  • 10 g vegetable oil
  • 35 g mustard oil
  • 2 pcs dried red chillies
  • 2 pcs bay leaves
  • 2 pcs cardamom
  • 2 pcs cloves
  • 1 pc cinnamon
  • ½ tsp cumin seeds
  • 15 g ginger paste
  • 8 g cumin powder
  • 4 g coriander powder
  • 3 g turmeric
  • ¼ tsp red chilli powder
  • 10 g salt
  • 20 g sugar
  • 2 pcs green chillies
  • 8 g ghee
  • ¼ tsp garam masala
  • 350 ml hot water

Method

  1. Rinse the gobindobhog rice, and spread it over a colander to air-dry completely.
  2. Wash and peel the potol in alternating strips, and halve each one. Cut the potatoes in 4-cm cubes, dice the tomato and slit the green chillies.
  3. Mix together ginger paste, coriander powder, cumin powder, turmeric and red chilli powder with 50 g water and set aside.
  4. Heat 10 g vegetable oil in a kadai. Add the cashew and raisins, and fry gently on low heat for about 20 seconds. Add the dried gobindobhog rice to the pan and continue frying until the rice is translucent. Remove from the oil and set aside.
  5. To the same pan, add 35 g mustard oil. Heat it until it starts to smoke gently and turns pale yellow. Add the potol with 2 g salt, and fry them on medium-high heat until well browned. This should take 6 to 8 minutes. Drain from the oil and set aside.
  6. Now temper the oil with dried red chillies, bay leaves, cardamom, cloves, cinnamon and cumin seeds. Then add the potatoes. Fry until potatoes are lightly coloured (about 4 minutes).
  7. Add the spice slurry we prepared earlier. Cover and sauté on medium heat until oil separates from the spices. Add a splash of water whenever the pan dries out and continue cooking.
  8. Add 10 g salt and 20 g sugar, and continue cooking. Also add the diced tomatoes and two slit green chillies.
  9. Once the tomatoes have softened, add the fried cashew, raisins and gobindobhog rice. Cook these, covered, with the spices, adding a little water at a time, until the rice is about 80% cooked.
  10. Then add the fried potol. Continue cooking until both the potol and rice are done, but take care that they don't turn mushy. Add only a little water at a time, just enough to cook the potol and rice.
  11. Finish with two more slit green chillies for flavour, gorom moshla and ghee. Cover and rest for 2 minutes before serving.

Recipe discussion

Did this recipe help you cook something that made you happy?

At Bong Eats, we are working to standardise Bengali recipes, and present them to the world in a way that anyone, anywhere will be able to cook Bengali food with confidence—even if they have never tasted it before. We want the world to know that there is Indian food beyond tikka masala.

A lot of time and money goes into creating precise recipes such as this one. We don't want to depend on advertisements that track our viewers' activities through third-party cookies; we do not want take sponsorship money from companies that don't make subpar products.

You can help us make this a sustainable venture that can employ talented local writers, editors, photographers, recipe-testers, and more. Donate to keep us going.

Make a One-time donation

Help us keep Bong Eats free and open for everyone by making a one-time contribution. You can donate as much as you want. No amount is too little.

Donate
Become a member ⭐️

Join to get access to a vibrant private community of people who full of people who love to cook, feed and eat. Get answers to your questions about recipes, techniques, where to find ingredients from fellow members. If you love cooking, this is the place for you.

Monthly LIVE cookalongs
Shiny new private forum
Adda after every video release
Personalised recommendations
✨ See Membership Perks ✨
OR
Art by Ritwika
A fun, private community for enthusiasts of Bengali food

We're building a community

With Bong Eats adda we are trying to create a quiet corner on the internet for people who love nothing more than cooking and feeding people. The focus is naturally on Bengali and South Asian food, but as anyone who has spent time with food and its history knows, everything in food is interconnected. Nowhere is this more true than in Bengal, the melting point of so many cultures of the world—home to the first "global cuisine", as food historian Pritha Sen puts it. If that sounds like just the place you have been looking for, come help us build this space together. We are just getting started.

Join now
Join our 2000+ strong community

🧣 Winter 🫛

Bakes & Roasts

Posted on
December 21, 2023
by
Bong Eats

Winter is here. It is time to get baking. Here are some ideas, both savoury and sweet.

Read More »

✨ What's new?

View all »

Bota-soho Begun Bhaja

Fried brinjal with stalk on

  • 20 mins
  • 104
    kcal
Viewers liked this
%

Peyajkoli Bhaja

A stir-fry with onion-blossom stalk

  • 40 mins
  • 160
    kcal
Viewers liked this
%

Bhetki Machher Jhol

With winter vegetables

  • 45 mins
  • 208
    kcal
Viewers liked this
%

Kacha Tetuler Tok

A light, green-tamarind chutney

  • 30 mins
  • 103
    kcal
Viewers liked this
%
See all New recipes »
More
potol
recipes
View all »

Potol Posto

Pointed gourd cooked with poppy seeds and coconut

  • 40 mins
  • 237
    kcal

Potoler Tel Jhol

A simple, quick, and light curry of pointed gourd, flavoured with mustard oil, nigella seeds, and green chillies.

  • 40 minutes
  • kcal

Potoler Dorma with Fish Filling

Potol, stuffed with a delicious filling made of bhetki and prawns, simmered in a rich gravy

  • 2 hours
  • kcal
More
gobindobhog
recipes
View all »

Chaal Potol

Potol (pointed gourd) in a silky sauce with perfumed rice, cashews and raisins—a recipe for special occasions

  • 50 minutes
  • kcal

Khichuri

The Bengali variant of the South Asian ‘khichdi’, made with nutty, roasted moong dal and fragrant gobindobhog rice.

  • 75 mins
  • kcal
More
Sunday
recipes
View all »

Doi Begun

This brinjal recipe is quick and easy, perfect with luchi or steaming hot rice.

  • 40 mins
  • 173
    kcal

Pressure-cooker Mutton Curry

Bengali mutton curry, cooked in a pressure cooker, with tender pieces of meat and potatoes, and a light, flavourful broth.

  • 2 hours
  • 653
    kcal

Chhana'r Koftakari

Light, fluffy, mildly-spiced chhana (cottage cheese) dumplings in curry.

  • 90 minutes
  • 465
    kcal