Bottle Gourd with Shrimp in Mustard Sauce

Lau Chingri Shorshe Bata

Lau Chingri is a favorite dish in our household. It is traditionally made with bottle gourd, but I prefer using chayote squash because it is more readily available and to me, they taste the same. To try something a little different, I added mustard paste and it tasted wonderful!

Spinach & Eggplant in Mustard Sauce

Palang Shaak Begun Shorshe Bata Diye

To try something different, I'd made Lau Chingri with Shorshe Bata which requires mustard seeds to be soaked and blended. The paste is then strained through a tea strainer to extract just the juice, so that the dish does not get tainted with the mustard seeds. Instead of discarding the remaining pulp, it was used to make this spinach and eggplant dish which added a tantalizing mustard flavor to otherwise bland greens. 

Yellow Split Peas Flavoured with Ginger & Tomatoes

Ada Tomato Diye Cholar Dal

These lentils are generally served with luchis (puffed bread that are made with white flour). Steamed rice or chapatis also work well. The dried peas look similar to chana dal, but taste quite different. They take about half an hour to cook and soften, so it's convenient to set this up to simmer while preparing other dishes for an evening meal.