Bangladeshi Lau Chingri: Bottle Gourd and Shrimp Curry with Fresh Coriander

Toss the shrimp with 1/4 tsp of the turmeric and 1/2 tsp of the salt and set aside while you cook the base. This short cure firms them and keeps them from weeping into the curry.

Serves 4

Ingredients

• 1 medium bottle gourd (lau/opo squash), about 2 lb (900 g), peeled, seeded and cut into 1-inch pieces; young zucchini or pattypan squash works too
• 1 lb (450 g) medium shrimp, peeled and deveined, shells reserved
• 3 tbsp mustard oil (or a neutral oil)
• 1 tsp panch phoron (Bengali five-spice), or 1/2 tsp cumin seed plus 1/4 tsp fennel seed and a pinch of nigella
• 2 dried red chiles
• 1 large onion, finely sliced
• 1 tbsp fresh ginger paste
• 1 tsp garlic paste
• 1 tsp ground turmeric
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 3 fresh green chiles, slit lengthwise
• 1 1/4 tsp fine sea salt, plus more to taste
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh coriander, plus more to finish

Instructions

1. Toss the shrimp with 1/4 tsp of the turmeric and 1/2 tsp of the salt and set aside while you cook the base. This short cure firms them and keeps them from weeping into the curry.
2. Heat the mustard oil in a wide pan over medium-high until it just begins to smoke, then pull it off the heat for 30 seconds. Heating mustard oil past its smoking point is what tames its raw bite.
3. Return the pan to medium heat, add the panch phoron and dried chiles, and let them crackle for 20 to 30 seconds until fragrant.
4. Add the sliced onion and cook for 6 to 8 minutes, stirring, until soft and pale gold at the edges. Stir in the ginger and garlic pastes and fry for another minute.
5. Add the remaining turmeric and the ground cumin with a splash of water to keep the spices from scorching, and cook for 1 minute until the oil separates and the paste smells toasted rather than raw.
6. Tip in the bottle gourd, green chiles and remaining salt. Stir to coat, cover and cook over medium-low for 12 to 15 minutes. Do not add water: the gourd releases plenty of its own and that liquid becomes the broth.
7. When the gourd is translucent and yields easily to a spoon, slide in the shrimp and cook uncovered for 3 to 4 minutes, just until they curl and turn opaque. Any longer and they toughen.
8. Stir through the chopped coriander, taste for salt, and let the curry rest off the heat for 5 minutes before serving with plain steamed rice.
9. Lau chingri is Bengali home cooking at its most characteristic: a light, brothy curry that treats a huge summer squash and a modest handful of river shrimp as equal partners rather than making the seafood the star. Bottle gourd is one of the great monsoon-season vegetables across Bangladesh and eastern India, prized precisely because it is watery and cooling in humid heat, and the technique of cooking it covered with no added liquid is the whole trick. If you cannot find lau at an Asian grocer, late-summer zucchini behaves almost identically, which makes this an unusually good use for the squash glut every August garden produces.

Nutrition (estimated, per serving)

• Calories: 290 kcal
• Protein: 24g
• Fat: 14g
• Carbohydrates: 16g
• Fiber: 3g
• Sugar: 6g
• Sodium: 580mg