Once again, I come up with another bottle gourd recipe and I don’t regret it at all! Usually bottle gourd is a winter crop in Bangladesh. However, in Denmark it is always available, mostly due to importation in summer from Southern Italy or other warmer countries in Europe. I might have mentioned in one of my previous post that bottle gourd is one of a kind vegetable, of which every part, including the plant itself is edible. Even there’s a folklore song in Bangladesh about the magnificent bottle gourd. So, let’s see how to make bottle gourd stir fry. You can follow the exact same recipe for making papaya, squash stir fry too.

We definitely need all the basic ingredients for making stir fry like onion, chili and oil but what makes this bhorta unique is jeera or cumin seed.

First I prepared the bottle gourd. I peeled and them cut into small uniform pieces.

You need to heat oil in a deep frypan, and then add cumin seeds to heated oil. We call it ‘phoron deya’ which basically means season the oil before adding any other ingredients.

After adding cumin seeds, you add sliced onion and cook until they are very lightly golden colour and then add sliced bottle gourd. I usually don’t brown the onion for this recipe because it does not go with the taste or color of bottle gourd. You add turmeric powder, salt and sliced chili to the pan and stir well. You can also add coriander or cumin powder but I don’t do loads of spice to this recipe.

Mix and coat everything well and cover the pot with lid to cook them in a very low temperature. Remember that bottle gourd is semi soft vegetable that means it has very high water content. So you must cook in low heat so it can get cooked with its own water.

After 10 minutes of cooking in a low heat, take off the lid and stir them.You can see that bottle gourd got more translucent already. At this point you can cook for 10 more minutes without the lid on.

Bottle gourd is almost cooked at this point as all of them are translucent and oils are oozing out from them. So you can either stop now or let them cook a bit more.

This is how the beautiful bottle gourd stir fry looks like. Imagine how it will be taste like with warm white rice in a cold rainy day! Just like this, a simple vegetarian dish can make your day fulfilled with warmth and happiness.

Recipe: 4-5 servings Prepping time: 10min, Cooking time: 20min

Ingredients: 1/2 Bottle Gourd 1 big onion 2-3 Green chili Spices and condiments: 1/4 Tsp Turmeric powder 5g whole cumin seed 1 tbsp salt oil

Instructions: 1. Peel bottle gourd. Slice it thin. 2. Heat vegetable oil in medium temperature and add cumin seeds when oil is warm. 3. Add onion and cook until slightly sauteed. 4. Add sliced bottle gourd, salt, turmeric powder and chili. Stir well to mix everything. Cover and let it cook for 15min in low heat. 5. Cook until all bottle gourd is translucent and cooked. Serve with plain rice or ruti.