Bengali people are very fond of kochu. They eat its leaves, stem, root, stolons everything. Not only that when somebody wants to say that a person does not know anything then he will say that person “Kochu jaane”. It means “he does not know anything”. Being a Bengali, I do not know how our most favorite vegetable becomes Nil or Nothing or Zero. It is really funny. I mean you like a vegetable but use that word to mean zero/nil. How? Okay, now coming to this Bengali style kochur loti recipe. Did you ever try this? I think if you are a Bengali then definitely ate it hundred of times. But if you are not Bengali then you hardly knew about this awesome food.
Now, what is kochur loti? Is it leaf? Is it stem? Is it root? Or what? Actually, what I understood about kochur loti, it is nothing but a stolon or runner or kind of stem what grows horizontally and at a certain point root will start growing from that stolon and new plant will grow gradually from there. So actually it is a reproductive system of kochu plant.
Mainly shola kachu or arum yam plant’s stolon are used as kochur loti. Being a Bengali we can make a delicious dish with those kochur loti and I believe from rich Bengali to poor Bengali, it favorite dish for everybody. If you make small sized prawn to this then it is just Yummmm Yummmm, haha. It is absolutely a traditional village style dish. Though it does not belong to an ‘elite class‘ Bengali dish but this vegetable is cooked at every Bengali’s kitchen.
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Very tasty Bengali style mochar ghonto, Mouthwatering Bengali traditional dish dhokar dalna
Also read:
5 traditional Bengali village food recipes
It is a dry dish and people normally have this food which rice. Though kochur loti recipe recipe follows simple steps and it needs a few ingredients but you will definitely need little practice to make this item like mother’s or grandmother’s style kochur loti.
Kochur loti recipe
- 2 cup kochur loti, cut into 1-inch pieces
- 1 tablespoon poppy seeds/posto/khuskhus
- ½ tablespoon mustard seeds paste
- 1.5 teaspoons turmeric powder
- 2 teaspoon red chilli powder
- 2 green chillies, cut into thin pieces
- 50 gm small prawns, optional
- Salt as needed
- 1.5 tablespoons oil
- Water as needed
- Wash & clean kochur loti and cut into 1 inch size pieces
- Now boil water and pour those kochur loti and boil it till it becomes little soft
- Then drain water and keep those boiled kochur loti aside for further use
- Now heat oil in a cooking pan and fry prawns and take all those fried prawns in a separate bowl (skip this step if you are not using prawns)
- Now add boiled kochur loti and stir for next 1 minute
- Then add poppy seeds paste, mustard seeds paste, turmeric powder, red chilli powder, finely chopped green chillies, fried prawns and salt
- Cook all till next 2-3 minutes
- Then switch off the flame and serve with rice
Thenks for your post, I’m wondering, here in Goa the people told me to harvest only those who have brown stem…
But i see here you use those who are green, does it mean both are edible, another thing is i boiled it and ate it like that but it’s quite a bit hitchy in the mouth and throat, can you tell me how tl avoid that ?