Lau Chingri Recipe (Bottle Gourd And Shrimp Curry)

Lau Chingri is bottle gourd cooked with shrimps, a delicacy from West Bengal. I love authentic Bengali cuisine, most of the recipes are so simple with minimal ingredients, yet so flavourful. It’s the same with Lau chingri, the humble bottle gourd gets a complete makeover by the use of shrimps. The shrimps just takes this simple bottle gourd curry to the next level.  Course : Lunch Ingridients : 1 Bottle gourd (lauki) , small 250 grams Shrimps 1/2 teaspoon Cumin seeds (Jeera) 1 Bay leaf (tej patta) 1/2 inch Ginger 1 Tomato 1/4 teaspoon Turmeric powder (Haldi) 1/4 teaspoon Cumin powder (Jeera) Salt , to taste Sugar , to taste Instructions To begin making the Lau Chingri recipe, marinate the shrimps with salt and turmeric powder for 10 minutes then lightly fry them in mustard oil for 2 minutes.To the same pan add cumin seeds and bay leaf followed by grated ginger and tomato.Saute them for few minutes and add bottle gourd.Add cumin powder, salt, sugar, turmeric powder, green chilies.Cover and simmer till the bottle gourd losses all its water and cooked.Add the shrimps and simmer for five more minutes. Serve Lau Chingri along with Steamed Rice and Bengali Jhinge Narkol Chenchki for a satisfying weekday meal.