What to cook with lauki

Lauki has a reputation for being dull, which is really a complaint about it being cooked plainly. It carries other flavours extremely well and it cooks in ten minutes.

It releases a lot of water, so it wants either a dry high-heat cook or a dal to soak into. Cooked slowly with chana dal it stops being a diet vegetable and becomes a good one.

Worth knowing: Grate it for kofta and squeeze it bone dry. The juice is worth keeping for the gravy.