My Food Story: ‘Lau shukto’ is about cooling off during the hot summer

Every summer, when the heat made afternoons slow and heavy, my grandmother would bring relief with a pot of lau shukto. She’d return from the market in her cotton sari, a fresh bottle gourd in hand, and sit on the cool floor peeling and slicing it. With a mix of vegetables and a touch of bitter fenugreek, the stew would simmer while she hummed old songs.

“Summer needs patience, light food, and love,” she’d say as she served it with rice, urging us to eat slowly and feel its cool comfort. Even now, when I cook lau shukto, I’m taken back to those afternoons, her bangles clinking, her warm smile, and the way she ladled love into every plate.

Lau shukto (bottle gourd in bitter creamy stew)

Ingredients

Bottle gourd (Lau) – chopped

Bitter gourd – thinly sliced

Raw banana – diced

Drumsticks – cut into pieces

Mustard seeds - 1 teaspoon

Bay leaves - 2

Dry red chillies - 2

Radhuni (wild celery seeds) - 1 teaspoon

Milk - 1 cup

Vadis - 6-7

Ginger paste - 1 teaspoon

Ghee

Mustard oil

Salt

Turmeric

Grated coconut (optional)

Method

Heat mustard oil in a pan and add bay leaves, dried red chillies, radhuni, and mustard seeds. Then add the chopped vegetables with some salt and turmeric and sauté for a while. Pour in water and milk and cook until the vegetables are soft. Mix in a little ginger paste, vadis, and grated coconut, and finish with a bit of ghee. Serve hot with rice.

My Food Story is a collection of stories and recipes that celebrate India’s traditional plant-based ingredients sourced from local biodiversity. You can see these recipes on our interactive dashboard (https://www.cseindia.org/page/myfoodstory).

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Mousumi Das is a housewife from West Bengal