Cheera Thoran

Cheera/ Spinach is an excellent source of many vitamins,minerals and anti-oxidents.It is available in different colors and texture,but for a Malayalee, cheera/spinach always means purple colored flat thin leaves.These purple colored cheera otherwise known as Kerala spinach is seen only in Kerala and it has less water content and less nutrition when compared to green Palak or Amaranth leaves.Many delicious side dishes can be prepared from Cheera ,among these cheera Thoran,Cheera Aviyal and Cheera Pachadi are the most popular ones.

This year a dear friend of mine offered me some Cheera seeds,and i planted them in several  containers.It was a great success and we were so happy that we could savour our favorite Kerala Spinach here in U.S too.I wish I could post all those wonderful Cheera recipes mentioned above,but I got only a small bunch just enough to make a thoran.Now its getting cold here and my cheera plants are slowly dying off.But I’ve preserved some seeds ,so I hope I could plant more cheera next year and blog about other dishes too.

This is my entry for GBP Summer 2007.Thanks to Deepz of Letz Cook for hosting this and hats off to you, Inji for coming up with such a wonderful event.

Ingredients:-

Cheera/Spinach chopped fine – 5 cups
Grated coconut – 3/4 to 1 cup
Shallots chopped – 4 or 5
Green chillies chopped – 4
Garlic chopped – 1/2 tsp
Jeera – 1 tsp
Turmeric powder – 1/2 tsp
Mustard seeds – 1 tsp
Curry leaves – a sprig
Salt – to taste
Oil – as needed

Method:-

Grind grated coconut,turmeric powder,green chillies,jeera seeds and garlic into a coarse paste and keep aside.Heat oil in a pan and add mustard seeds into it.Allow it to splutter,then add curry leaves,stir and add the chopped spinach.Stir for few minutes and mix in the ground paste.Add salt,stir and cook until all the water evaporates and thoran becomes dry.Serve with rice.

Now this is over to you Deepz….

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