Vegetable Kootu/ Vegan Cumin flavored coconut vegetable Curry

Onam festival is around the corner!Happy Onam in advance! It is incomplete without Onam Sadhyam/ heavy & satisfying meal! Generally special dishes in the meal have the hint of coconut & Banana (raw/ ripe) in various forms. Nendran banana prathamam/ payasa, nendran chips are the must have items. ‘Avial’, other curries accompany rice. Today I am posting recipe of kootu/ curry resembles avail & majjige huli, but without buttermilk/ curds. The best vegetables suitable for this curry are tindora/ ivy gourd and Malabar cucumber/ sambhar cucumber.

This is very easy to make with minimum ingredients, which goes great with rice.  This recipe was initially introduced to me by my friend Soumya Bhat who helped me in coming up with 'Ritucharya post'. Thanks Soumya!

Preparation time: 10 minutes

Cooking time: 20 minutes

Serves: 4

Ingredients:

Vegetable of choice (Ivy gourd/ Sambhar cucumber/ Snake gourd…) – 2 cups (diced/ cut into desired shape)

Freshly grated coconut – ½ cup

Cumin seeds – 1 tsp

Black Pepper – 8-10, adjust to required spice level

Salt – to taste

Coconut oil – 2 tsp

Mustard seeds – 1 tsp

Dry red chilli - 1

Curry leaves – 1 sprig

Method:

• Wash vegetable and cut as you like.
• Cook it with water and salt.
• Meanwhile, grate coconut. Take it in a mixer jar, add cumin & pepper. Grind to get smooth paste.
• Add the coconut paste to the cooked vegetable when vegetable is done.
• Bring to boil. Switch off the heat.
• Prepare a seasoning of coconut oil, mustard, minced red chilli and curry leaves. Add to the curry/ kootu.
• Serve hot kootu with steamed rice and little coconut oil on top if needed.

Notes:

• Curry will be mildly spiced with the ingredients mentioned here. You can increase the pepper quantity if you need spicier.
• Avial reciep is similar with mixed vegetables with added green chillis while grinding coconut. At the end, little buttermilk/ curds should be added
• This kootu tastes similar like avial.