Lau Chingri

This dry, curried bottle-gourd recipe is a family favourite, and can be cooked with or without the shrimp!

  • Cooking time
    60 mins
  • Calories
    154
    kcal
Recommended by
97.8
%
of
2667
viewers who rated this recipe on Youtube

On paper, lau chingri is a simple recipe with very few spices. In reality, it can be difficult to get right. Part of the problem is that bottle gourd (lau) can release a large quantity of water. The cook needs to use this water to cook the gourd such that by the time the gourd is perfectly cooked, all of the water has dried up. They must adjust the heat, and cover and uncover the pot based on how much water the gourd releases, and how fast it turns soft. This is a difficult thing to master as it is, but the problem is made worse by the fact that bottle gourds vary widely in water content and tenderness. Every lau is different!

On the day of filming we are lucky enough to find excellent lau in the market, the fine hairs on the surface still intact, AND some spotted kucho chingri (small freshwater prawns), which fishsellers refer to as harin chingri (deer prawns) because of the spots.

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
  • 1 kg lau (bottle gourd, 5-mm sticks)
  • 100 g  kucho chingri (tiny freshwater prawns, cleaned and deveined with head on)
  • 45 g  mustard oil
  • 1  dried red chilli
  • 1  bay leaf
  • 1  cardamom pod
  • 1  clove
  • 1  cinnamon
  • ½ tsp  cumin seeds
  • ½ tsp  cumin powder
  • ¼ tsp  turmeric
  • 6 g  ginger paste
  • 4  green chillies (slit)
  • 10 g  salt
  • 18 g  sugar
  • 2 tsp  ghee
  • 1 pinch  gorom moshla
  • 6 g  coriander leaves (chopped)

Method

  1. Clean and devein the prawns. Smear them with ¼ tsp each of salt and turmeric. Set aside.
  2. Peel the lau, and chop it in 5-mm thick strips, 4 cm long.
  3. Place an empty kadai on the stove. Once it has heated up fully, add mustard oil. Wait for it to give off a gentle smoke and turn pale yellow.
  4. Fry the marinated prawns in it for 30 seconds. Don’t overfry, or they will become tough. Remove from the oil and set aside.
  5. Temper the same (now-prawn-flavoured) oil with a dried red chilli, bay leaf, cinnamon, cardamom, cloves and cumin seeds.
  6. Add cumin powder and turmeric. Fry these on low heat for 2 minutes before adding the ginger paste. Fry for another 2 minutes. If the spices start sticking to the pan, you may add splashes of water and continue frying.
  7. Add lau, green chillies and salt. Mix everything and cover the pan with a lid.
  8. You will now have to cook this, stirring occasionally, until the spices are well braised and the lau has ‘reduced’. This can take anything from 25–40 minutes.
  9. Add sugar and continue cooking until the liquid has more or less dried up.
  10. Add the fried prawns and continue braising until a very light caramelisation stage is reached.
  11. Finish with ghee, Bengali garam masala and chopped coriander leaves.

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 »

Duck Vindaloo

Hot-sour-spicy duck slow-cooked with garlic, vinegar and spices

  • 60 mins
  • 365
    kcal
Viewers liked this
%

Mete Kosha

Spicy braised liver curry

  • 60 mins
  • 357
    kcal
Viewers liked this
%

Rajma Gosht

Lahori-style rajma cooked with mutton, liver and kidney

  • 60 mins
  • 333
    kcal
Viewers liked this
%

Mutton Stew

A light, mildly sweet mutton stew—a Siddique family recipe

  • 60 mins
  • kcal
Viewers liked this
%
See all New recipes »
More
lau
recipes
View all »

Lau Chingri

This dry, curried bottle-gourd recipe is a family favourite, and can be cooked with or without the shrimp!

  • 60 mins
  • 154
    kcal

Lau'er Ghonto

A dry, spicy curry of bottle gourd with roasted moong dal and sun-dried lentil dumplings.

  • 1 hour
  • kcal

Tita'r Dal

Moong dal cooked with bitter melon and bottle gourd, flavoured with ginger, ghee and coconut

  • 30 minutes
  • kcal
More
prawn
recipes
View all »

Lau Chingri

This dry, curried bottle-gourd recipe is a family favourite, and can be cooked with or without the shrimp!

  • 60 mins
  • 154
    kcal

Kakrar Jhal

Bengali crab curry with a twist

  • 90 minutes
  • 272
    kcal

Prawn Cocktail

Prawns poached and coated with a sauce made of mayonnaise, ketchup, cream, Tobasco sauce, and Worcestershire sauce.

  • 30 minutes
  • kcal