Lau Shol – The Simplicity of Rural Bengali Food

Lau shol is a dish from rural Bengal where food was locally grown for consumption. Until modern lifestyle and marketing made a mess of it.

The main idea was always to cook simple and eat fresh food. And lau shol is an outcome of this very simplicity.

The dish uses the humble bottle gourd (also called lau in Bengali), that is much disliked by many today. And it uses snakehead murrel (called shol in Bengali).

Pretty uncanny, isn’t it?

Yet, when bottle gourd is cubed and cooked with simple spices like turmeric and cumin powder and ginger to a light gravy-based curry (also called jhol in Bengali), and sauteed fish fillet is simmered in it – the end result is a dish that tastes very flavorful.

Sweet and savory, the amalgamation of flavors from simple and locally grown ingredients makes for a hearty lunch when served with hot rice as the tastebuds go on a joy-ride.

Alternate Fish to Try This Recipe With

You can cook a similar bottle-gourd recipe with the following fish –

• snakehead murrel (or shol)
• freshwater rohu (rui)
• catla (katla)
• climbing perch (koi)

For rohu and katla, avoid matured fish (that have a lot of fat content). Consider freshly-caught, smaller sized fishes (also called charapona in Bengali).

If you are living outside Bengal where freshly caught fishes (like the ones listed above) is not readily available, you may still try to cook a lau shol recipe – although the outcome may not as flavorful as the one cooked with freshly netted fish.

The Second Tempering

For a lot of dishes cooked in rural Bengal, the tempering is done at the end of cooking process. And it makes sense as well.

I am calling it as the second tempering for lack of better term in English (helpless!).

Once the lau shol is cooked, it is transferred from the wok to a bowl (large enough to hold the whole of it).

Then in a separate wok (or the same wok can be cleaned, dried and used) mustard oil is added and allowed to smoke on a medium flame.

Depending on the dish being cooked, whole spices like cumin seeds, panch phoron, radhuni, bayleaf, whole red chili is added.

As the whole spices splutter, the cooked dish is poured over it and stirred to mix. As it starts to boil, the flame is switched off and the dish is readied to serve.

The second tempering used for lau shol is only cumin seeds and radhuni.

Radhuni is a very common spice found in Bengali kitchen, which is often referred to as wild celery seeds.

While I cannot confirm whether radhuni is indeed wild celery, what I can confirm is that these are readily available online if you are staying outside Bengal. Within Bengal, these are available in any grocery shops.

While adding radhuni, always try to crush it within your palms and then add to the oil.

Without a doubt, the second tempering magnifies the flavor of the dish. You may use it with a lot of simple vegetarian dishes that does not use onion and garlic.

Let’s whip up lau shol now.