Here is a recipe for Lau Posto ( Bottle gourd cooked in Poppy seed paste) that is so delicious. If you are looking for a low carb alternative to Aloo Posto, then this recipe is a keeper. It’s terrific easy to make and comforting Bengali side dish for lunch or dinner on a hot summer day! Lau Posto tastes best with rice. But of course, you can enjoy it with plain Roti/ Phulka, Paratha.
Because it’s winter and I am not a morning person, so it’s almost impossible for me to wake up two hours early in the morning and cook lunch and pack lunches for office and school lunch box, then make breakfast, get Mithi ( my daughter) ready for school and then get ready to drop her in school! phew….
I don’t like to start my days with a lot of stress! Rather I like to keep my morning routine simple and achievable. I only make a warm breakfast for us and pack a fresh lunchbox for our daughter in the morning. So, nowadays I shifted my cooking schedule into my evening routine! I do the prep work during day time.
I cut the bottle gourd in the afternoon, soak the poppy seeds, wash and soak the rice, Dal, and then start cooking after my evening tea. As soon as I finished my cooking, I serve dinner. This way, except for Lunch, we enjoy the freshly home cooked meals every day!
Last week when I went to my local Indian store, I bought a Bottle gourd. Lauki in Hindi and Bengali name is Lau! The plan was to make a dessert with it! But, if you are anyone like me, then your plan changed all the time! So instead of making dessert, I decided to make this quick side dish Lau Posto( Bottle gourd cooked with poppy seed)
Five ingredient Recipes in Bengali Cuisine!
Most of the five ingredient recipes exclude salt, sugar and fat. If we exclude these three ingredients from this recipe, then we can call it three ingredient recipe! Like Lau Posto, there are hundreds of recipes in Bengali cuisine that required five or less than five ingredients to prepare a dish and you can put together them less than an hour and serve in a humble Thali meal. Save this Lau Posto recipe in your five ingredient recipes folder.
What is Thali Meal
Thali is a popular Hindi word! Thali means a big plate for serving meals. The bengali word for Thali is Thala. Like many Hindi words, it has two meaning. Thali also significance a complete Indian meal that designed in consist of all basic tastes/ flavours:
- Bitterness
- Saltiness
- Savouriness
- Sourness
- sweetness
Every state of India has its own conventional style to serve a Thali.
An everyday Bengali meal or Bengali Thali consists of a bitter dish, that can be Shukto or Uchhe- aloo bathe( boiled potato and bitter gourd smash). Followed by a savoury dry vegetable curry (though there is nothing call vegetable curry in Bengali, its called Torkari) and dal, then the main dish, mostly fish. The meal ends with Chutney.
What you Need for Lau Posto!
The star ingredient in this recipe is Posto( Poppyseed). For this recipe, we need white Poppy seeds, green chillies, Bottle gourd, Mustard oil and Salt.
Use of Poppy seed (Posto) in Indian and Bengali cuisine
Posto is a Bengali word, means Poppyseed.
In Indian cuisine, Poppy Seeds or Posto uses in various forms. Ground Poppy seeds used as a thickening agent for Korma, coarsely ground poppy seed paste cooked with different vegetables. In Bengali cooking, we also make Posto-r- Bora ( Poppy seed fritters). Posto Bata (Poppy seeds Paste) is another gem of Bengali recipes.
Serve steamed rice with uncooked Poppy seeds paste season with chopped onion, green chillies, a tad of mustard oil and Salt. It tastes divine!
By the way, if you are a Bong, did you watch the Bengali movie Posto?
I did!
Did I like the movie?
Yes and no!
Okay, now let’s go back to the dish.
Vegetable suitable for Posto
I love my carbs! Aloo Posto, Dal and rice, hands down for this comfort meal! But, variety is always a good thing, and from time to time I opt for Lau Posto( Bottle Gourd cooked with Poppy seed paste), Pyaz Posto( Onion cooked with Poppy seed paste), Zucchini Posto. Even you can cook Posto with Dim, the dish called Dim Posto (Egg cooked with Poppy seed paste).
Consistency of the Posto paste
Don’t make your Posto paste smooth! When you make it a little bit grainy, that gives a texture to the dish and, the dish tastes better. Are you looking for more “five ingredient Bengali recipes“? Stay connected And, join us on Facebook, Instagram for daily meal updates.
Meal Ideas
Like any other cuisines, with a little bit of planning and pre-work, you can put together a Bengali meal for your weekdays’ lunch or weeknights dinner. My Mantra is-
“Cook once and eat twice.“
I try to come up with the combination of the recipes with a variety of colour, flavour, texture and make-ahead dishes.
- Rice
- Dal- Tomato Diye Arhar/ Toor Dal
- Side Dish 1- Begun Bhaja ( Eggplant fry)
- Side Dish 2 – Lau Posto
- Main dish- Macher Kalia ( Bengali Fish Curry)
- Chutney- Tomato chutney
Recipe: 3/300
Lau Posto
Ingredients
- 1 kg Bottle gourd - cut into fine julienne
- 3 tbsp Poppy Seed
- 3-4 Green chilli - you can add more or less
- 2 tbsp Mustard Oil
- 1 Dry red chilli
Instructions
- Cut the top and bottom part of the bottle gourd, then peel off the skin and wash it. Slice it into a small round, then stack 3-4 slices and then cut them into juliennes.
- Soak poppy seed into the water at least for 15 minutes, then pour it into the grinding jar, add green chilli, salt and grind it.
- Heat up your cooking pot and heat mustard oil.
- Add red chilli in the hot oil, stir for a couple of seconds.
- Add chopped bottle gourd, sprinkle salt and over high heat, cook for a couple of minutes.
- Reduce the heat to medium-low, cover the cooking pot with a lid and cook till the bottle gourd almost cooked through.
- Add poppy seeds paste, add a couple of spoon of water, mix everything well.
- Increase the heat to high and cook for a couple of minutes, then remove from the heat and cover it.
- Give 10 -15 minutes resting time before serve, Enjoy!
Read more about my 300 recipes challenge here.
5 comments
Asadharon
Thank you 😊
Oh actually I read the recipe of lau er khoshar chutney and made it too.it was super yum..and I went on reading other recipes and commented under the lau posto…so sorry ..my bad.
The khosha chutney was awesome…This is Pooja Thakre from Malaysia..my mom in law is a bengali n I just love Bangla khabaar. Looking forward for more recipes from you.
Hi Pooja, happy to read your comment! I am just wondering are you talking about Lau Posto? If yes, then we usually serve it as a side dish with rice, but I guess it won’t be a bad idea to serve it as a chutney as well! All we need to put some souring and sweet agent as well 🙂 Happy cooking!