I can’t decide if it was sheer laziness or some sort of sadistic streak or some serious apathy towards vegetables that made someone name the dish Labra!! It has to be the single most unappetising and uninspiring name for any dish I’ve come across! According to Chat GPT, the name was derived from the Bengali world “Laba-labi”, meaning mixing or tossing together (serious eye roll)!!
With the kind of gorgeous, nutrient rich seasonal ingredients that go into it, any health food enterprise would have given this dish some fancy-ass Buddha Bowl type name – maybe the Healthy Durga Bowl or something, and made it into a serious health fad 🙂
The reason I chose this dish for my Pujo upload this year is fairly obvious – I think, with the kind of disturbing atmosphere prevailing in Bengal and in many parts of the world – the horrific medical case, the complete breakdown of law and order, the floods wreaking havoc in so many areas, the unending wars elsewhere in the world – this year’s Pujo celebration demands simplicity and a lack of ostentation, is what I feel.
Coming back to Labra, during my growing up days, I can’t honestly say that I have ever fantasized about eating Labra – while just about every other Pujo Bhog dish I looked forward to! At best it was one of those unavoidable hurdles that had to be crossed to get from Khichuri to Chutney and Payesh and all the good stuff, basically. I have NEVER seen Labra on any restaurant menu. I have NEVER been served Labra in anyone’s house for any occasion or event or invite. Hell, nobody EVER made Labra in my own house! My re-discovery of Labra happened because I decided to try and make a whole bhog (a vegetarian feast offering to the deity) at home for the Pandemic Pet Pujo Song a couple of years ago.
To start with, I was quite surprised to see the long list of vegetables that go into it – I’d never have deduced it, from the over-cooked dodgy looking slush that the volunteers would slosh onto my leaf plate from their serving buckets! The first thing that struck me about the process of cooking it, was how colourful and beautiful the veggies looked – both raw and while one is cooking! I realised that I was actually enjoying the cooking process, and it was a visually therapeutic treat, looking at those colours and imbibing the aroma.
The second thing I realised is that one didn’t HAVE to cook each one of those vegetables to death, till the whole thing became a messy unphotogenic sludge. So I’ve arrived at my own strategy for how I like making this dish at home. For the last two years, since I’ve been living very close to my parents, and since they’re really not upto the physical rigors of visiting Pujo Pandals and waiting in line to have bhog, I’ve been making my own version of bhog at home for all of us. And I can tell from how eagerly my parents look forward to the Labra, that my strategy’s not a bad one.
Here’s how I make it :
INGREDIENTS : ( for 4 serves )
○ 1/2 cabbage
○ 100 gm fresh spinach
○ 1 medium radish
○ 1 medium ridge gourd
○ 200 gm orange pumpkin
○ 2 sweet potatoes
○ 1 small round or 2 long brinjals (egg plant/ aubergine )
○ 100 gm broad beans
○ 100 gm french beans / black eyed beans
○ 1 tbsp mustard oil
○ 2 dry red chillies
○ 3 bay leaf
○ 1 tsp panchphoron
○ 1/4 tsp hing ( asafoetida )
○ 1 tbsp ginger paste
○ 1 tsp cumin powder
○ 1 tbsp sugar ( or to taste )
○ 1 tsp turmeric powder
○ 1 tsp salt ( or to taste )
○ 2 – 3 tsp spice masala ( made by dry roasting and grinding 1 tbsp fennel seed, 1 tbsp cumin seed, 1 tbsp coriander seeds and 3 green cardamoms )
○ 1 tbsp ghee ( optional )
○ handful of fresh coriander
From my research I’ve gathered that there are MANY more seasonal / local veggies that can go into this medley, as per one’s taste. People use potatoes (I avoid them and replace them with sweet potatoes which have a lower glycemic index and higher fiber, vitamins A, B and C and calcium quantities than potatoes), cauliflowers, kochu, (taro root), raw plantain, banana stem, tomatoes etc.
The ONE key ingredient that really makes a difference to this dish, in my opinion, is PATIENCE and mindfulness and the willingness to add the veggies in the right sequence and give each one its required amount of cooking time so that nothing is overcooked or undercooked.
METHOD OF COOKING :
○ Make the moshla (spice mix ) to be sprinkled over veggies in the last stages of cooking by dry roasting spice masala ingredients described above, till aromatic, and coarsely grinding. Only 2-3 tsp will be required, if making only 4 serves.
○ Chop all the vegetables into roughly uniform 1inch squares / cubes
○ Heat mustard oil to smoking point and temper with dry red chillies, bay leaf, hing (asafoetida) and panchphoron, (a mix of cumin, nigella, fenugreek, wild celery and fennel seeds), stir till sputtering stops
○ Add the chopped vegetables in a sequence from the hardest to the softest vegetables, in this order: sweet potato, pumpkin, raddish, both the beans, ridge gourd, cabbage, brinjal and spinach, stirring well after adding each vegetable
○ Add salt, sugar, turmeric, ginger paste, cumin powder, stir and mix well
○ Cover and cook till vegetables are cooked – this should take around 15-20 minutes
○ Sprinkle the spice moshla, mix, add 1 tbsp of ghee (optional) and mix well
○ Garnish with fresh coriander
That’s basically it. DON’T over cook the stuff. It’s not a great idea to dump all the veggies into a pressure cooker and cook them all together. It should basically still look gorgeous, as you can see it does. What this dish desperately needs, really is a re-branding and an image makeover 🙂 It belongs right up there with the best of our Indian vegetarian dishes, on fancy restaurant and event menus and in our homes on a more frequent basis!
I rather loved what Chat GPT came up with when I asked it for a tantalising way to describe this very under-valued dish. Let me actually quote Chat GPT here :
“Labra is a delightful medley of seasonal vegetables, slow-cooked to perfection in a fragrant blend of spices, and bursting with earthy flavors that encapsulate the essence of Durga Pujo Bhog. This authentic Bengali mixed vegetable curry is a comforting dish, where the vegetables meld together into a harmonious blend of textures and aromas, making it the perfect side to the Bhoger Khichuri. Each bite brings out the natural sweetness of the vegetables, enriched by mustard oil and traditional Bengali spices, creating a wholesome and soulful experience.”
There you go – don’t know how far we are from a time when we’ll just have to tell an AI bot what we want to eat and it’ll shop and cook and feed us and deduct what it cost directly from our banks!!