Lau Data diye Motor Daal | Yellow Split Pea Lentil with Bottle Gourd Stem
March 11
It is getting hot! Last year this day we were already under lockdown. It still makes me shiver at the thought of how overnight our world had changed. I remember on Holi last year which was on the 9th March, very few people had gone down to celebrate. We already heard the news of Covid spreading rapidly and some folks were already detected in Pune. I had skipped going down to play and just enjoyed from my balcony watching people play down. No one knew right form next day, it would be a different story.
A year has passed and not much has changed. In fact history is kind of repeating again. Maharashtra is again showing a spike and Holi is just round the corner. Fingers crossed this time. Hopefully we will tide through with minimum impact.
Meanwhile due to the hot weather, now all my recipes are turning towards simple , easy to digest and soulful dishes. No heavy tadkas or oily food especially. The dish I am talking about today is a daal prepared with tender stems of bottle gourd. While adding bottle gourds to daal is a common practice, in Bengal we also like to add the stems and greens of Bottle gourd with the daal. The health benefits of bottle gourd is also present in its greens. It keeps your body cool and easy on the tummy. The taste and aroma is an added incentive. Bottle gourd pairs up fabulously with Motor daal. Yellow split pea lentil or motor is is a very common household daal in Bengal, but I have never seen it outside Bengal. It has a very typical aromatics which might not be pleasant to all, hence we usually pair it up with some vegetables to balance out the aroma. The daal that I used in here is sourced from Bengal. You can however check in your areas, at times there are some vendors who keep sourcing Bengali food items. During lockdown, many such vendors made there presence in Pune, which was one of the best things that could have happened in this phase. If you cant get your hands on motor daal, you can as well use masoor daal (red lentils) for this recipe.
This daal goes best with steamed rice and some basic stir fried subzis, like potato fry or bitter gourd fry. But you can also enjoy it with any other vegetarian subzis.
Check Out the DIY Background I made for this shoot.
- Yellow Split Pea Lentil or Motor Daal - 1 cup
- Lau Data ( Tender stems of bottle gourd plant) - 2 inch pieces ( 1 cup)
- Radhuni / Celery Seeds - 1/2 tsp
- Dried Whole Red Chilli - 2
- Bat Leaf - 1
- Turmeric - 1/2 tsp or as required
- Salt - as per taste
- Mustard Oil - for tempering
- Dried Whole Red Chilli - 1
- Ghee - 1 tsp
- Red Chilli powder - 1/2 tsp
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