Lau Shol (Snakehead Murrel with Bottle Gourd curry)

Day 52 of Lock Down

Well I have kind of lost track of the number of days now. Tomorrow lockdown 3.0 ends and lockdown 4.0 beings in Maharashtra. Officially it says 52 days, but I have been holed up in my home since the first week of March. Back then I had decided to work from home just as a safety measure, because employees around my cubicle were either coughing or sneezing. Who knew the work form home would spill into May or even June and no idea how much more.

As I jot this down, it started to pour outside. Like literally it is stormy weather outside and coming down as cats and dogs. From past two days, right from the morning it is cloudy. And then post afternoon we are getting light or heavy spells of rain. I think we are already getting the pre-monsoons. Somehow I don't even know where the summer went this year. we are inching into June when the monsoons are about to start. We lost a complete season to the virus, something we might have never anticipated. But the good part is, nature transformed. Getting Kalbaishakhi in Pune was something unexpected. We also transformed. We learnt to do everything a bit differently and then improvised as well. Had not it been for the lockdown, I barely got time to invest in the blog. But now I am once again investing time in things I had put on backburner even after day's office work. It feels great. Cooking, writing, photography, painting and reading all sorts of interesting stuff on the net, plus making new friends and acquaintances in food forums. There is definitely a fear looming on us about the situation around, especially when we are stepping out of the home to make essential errands. But still we are learning to live with it and adapt. The journey has been interesting so far with a few hiccups as well.

 I had joined a few food groups in facebook much before the lockdown started. But I hardly spent time to check them out on a daily basis. When lockdown started, initially the time spent in looking at all I could find in facebook increased considerably. And I realized I was part of a food group names as Pune Food Group which had some amazing recipes published on a daily basis by its patrons. Watching all the amazing creations over there I felt inspired in true sense. Once the lockdown phase stabilized a bit, when we again started getting food essentials properly, I started investing a little more time in cooking dishes which I never tried before. Some of them were traditional Bengali recipes, some fusion, and some totally based on the ingredients available at any given day.

For the longest period in time I was missing getting fish. Being a Bengali its pretty unimaginable that I didn't eat any fish for over a month back then. Previously I used to get my fish supplies from local fishmongers and mostly it would be either Rohu, Catla or Magur. Because that's all I would get in my area which was aligned to my Bengali palate. Rest all were mostly the fishes which Maharashtrians preferred. Not many Bengalis live in this part of the town hence no Bengal specific fishes would come, apart from Hilsa which I would get at the nearby Big Bazar. But with the lockdown, there was absolutely no option of leaving this area, since all roads were blocked. One day to my utter joy I found a neighborhood fish store open. I wrote about the experience in my Sorshe Diye Macher Jhal blog. But then again when the soul is Bengali it can not thrive long on the Bangda and Kolambi selections alone.

So it happened that when I started posting about a few of my dishes in this FB group, I met a few folks with whom i built a good camaraderie and shared the usual fun banter. During one such instance I met Sinchita and we got talking over things including sourcing good fish in these times. That's when I got to know about Fresh to Home from her. Previously there was this one time I had bought fish online because I was not getting Catla locally and I need it for preparing curry for some guests coming over. But when it had arrived, I was utterly disappointed. Right form the packing to the contents everything was dismal. The fish was probably dead a month back and in freezer till then. The fish tasted like cardboard and I swore never to order fish online again.

But dire situations demand dire actions. So I thought I will give it a go again, especially since many members of the group were all praises for their service. Problem was that it was still the phase of lockdown 2.0 and my area came under one of the many containment zones of Pune. So whenever I was looking at the app it showed all empty. After trying for a couple of days I finally concluded that they were not servicing in this area at all. When I told this to Sinchita, she went out of her way and informed me when they were available. And I was able to place the first order. So just as a precautionary measure I ordered something else initially to gauge their quality. The delivery guy was dot on time and he was wearing all safety gears. I saw him sanitizing his hands before he touched the bag of products. The product is vacuum sealed and then put inside another packet and then the delivery guy puts it into a brown paper bag and hands it over to you. I pretty much liked what I saw. This is not a sponsored post or anything. I liked the services of Fresh to home and hence I wanted to mention it in here, so that if someone would just stumble upon my blog they might find this information useful.

After the successful attempt now I was ready to order my first fish from them. This week while just gazing the application I saw a fish that looked like Shol. I looked at it twice because Shol is something I never thought I would see anywhere outside Bengal. At least in the last decade in Maharashtra I never saw it, not even in Mumbai. When I was kind of convinced I thought its still better to double check with my mom, because the prices looked a bit steep. Immediately send a picture of it to mom who was as surprised as me and confirmed it was indeed Shol. My joys knew no bound as I ordered them. and they got delivered just on time the next day.

Shol is a fresh water fish with a firm flesh. They also known as shoal fish, channa striata, shoul fish, snakehead fish etc. Its a very popular fish in the eastern part of India, especially Bengal, Assam and Bangladesh. My first memories of this fish gravy was that prepared by my grandma when we used to visit her in vacations. She would make small pieces of the fish and that was my only gripe. I always wondered why she used to only make this particular fish into such small pieces. No way to know that now because she is no more. My best guess can be because of its firm texture, smaller pieces means better absorption of seasonings. Whenever I visit Kolkata, at least once mom would prepare this. I never realized I liked this fish this much until I saw it in the app and ordered even at Rs 200 extra per Kg than what it is in Kolkata.

The fish looked firm and pink and when I cooked it today , a day later it was still super fresh. I could tell it clearly by the way they looked when I fried them. Traditionally I prefer it with red pumpkins just the way my mom prepares. But during this lockdown I am not getting them. So next best option was lauki or lau. This is also a classic combination. Mainly this combination of fish with Vegetables might sound a bit weird to many, but its very common in the east, especially in the Bangal cuisine. A very simple and light gravy which has the goodness of both vegetables and fish making it a wholesome meal in one with rice.

Preparation Time : 15 minutes

Cooking Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

• Shol Fish - 500 gm
• Lau/lauki (Bottle Gourd_ - 1/2 Kg
• Bay Leaf (Tej Patta)- 1 
• Radhuni - 1/2 tsp
• Jeera (Cumin) - 1/2 tsp
• Green Chillies - 2-3 
• Turmeric - 1 tsp + 1 tsp
• Sugar - 2 tsp
• Salt as required
• Mustard oil

Procedure: 

1.  Clean the fish and marinate with salt and turmeric. Drizzle it with a little oil, it helps in coating the fishes with the spices better. 

2. Fry the fish in mustard oil and keep aside

Tip: For frying fish Bengalis always prefer Mustard oil, because it cuts through the fishy smell better than refined oil

3. Peel off the skin from a Lau. Cut the lau into half rounds.

Tip: You can preserve the lau skin and make it into a nice bharta. Will share the recipe sometime.

4. Take some water in the pressure cooker like 2 cup and transfer the lau into it. Add a spoon of sugar to it. Now put the lid on and cook it for 1 whistle. 

Tip: Sugar helps retain the green color of the lau even when pressure cooked.

5. Immediately remove the pressure cooker and let it stand under the tap water for a few seconds before the pressure dies and open the lid. Drain the hot water and run the lau once under normal tap water to stop further cooking process due to heat. Preserve the water separately. It will be used for the gravy base.

Tip: If you immediately open the lid of the cooker then it also helps in retaining the color. The longer it sits in the hot water, the sooner it looses the color

6. Take a wok, and heat Mustard oil. When oil is hot throw in a spoonful of jeera. Fry it for 30 seconds and take them out with a spoon into some plate. Let them cool down while you do the rest of the cooking.

Tip: Don't use iron wok for cooking Lau, it will strip off the green color and darken the  dish

7. Temper the same oil with Bay leaf, slitter green chillies, cumin and radhuni. 

Note: If you do not have radhuni, only jeera should also be fine.

8. Add the boiled lau and add turmeric and salt.

9. Add the Lau stock to it about 1 and a 1/2 cups. Fold every thing in.

Tip: Add the water as per your liking. Lau curries don't work with too much of gravy. It tastes best when the gravy is less.

10. Add the sugar. Now this is an essential step in a lau gravy to balance the taste. You can vary as per liking. If you want to omit it totally that should also be fine, but I feel it tastes much better with some sugar.

Note: Sugar is added only to balance the taste, gravy is not supposed to be sugary sweet.

11. Add the fish pieces now. And stir everything in.

12. Boil it for about 5- 10 minutes till the fishes start releasing their juices into it. If you want to dry off the extra water, do that in this stage.

13. Crush the fried jeera you had kept aside at step 6. No need of fine grinding. Just crush enough so they release the flavours.

14. Once the fish is cooked int he gravy, sprinkle this crushed jeera on it and cover it. Let the aroma of the fried jeera mix with the gravy till its time to serve.

Serve it with steamed rice.

Do try this out and tag me (@curriesnstories07) on Instagram on your photos whenever you try the recipe and I will give a shout out to you.