Malabar Style Koottu Curry

This is quite a late post,I prepared this Koottu curry around 1 month back for our Malayalee Association OnaSadya.In my place,we don’t normally prepare any Kottu curry for the Sadya.So when the program co-ordinators asked me to bring a Koottu curry,I directly called my mother-in law.She gave me the recipe for a Vada Koottu curry(popular in Trivandrum),which has pieces of ‘Uzhunnu Vada‘(Urad Dal Vada) dipped in it.I was lazy to put so much effort and was also short of time,so asked my friend for an easy recipe for Koottu curry.And I got this Malabar style Koottu curry recipe from her,she too had to call her amma in calicut for this.Thanks Shuba,for all the efforts and help,we all really loved the dish.I will surely be posting a Trivandrum Style Vada curry soon.

Koottu Curry

Back to the recipe:-

Ingredients:-

Black Chickpeas cooked- 1 cup
Raw Plantain diced – 1 big
Yam/Suran diced – 1 cup
(I had to prepare the curry in large quantity,so I added many other veggies also.The vegetables I’ve used are:-Carrots,Pumpkin,Cucumber and Potato(altogether 1 cup))

Turmeric Powder – 1/2 tsp
Red Chilly Powder – 1/2 tsp

Grated Coconut – 1 cup
Whole Red Chillies – 5
Jeera Seeds – 1 tsp

Mustard Seeds – 1 tsp
Urad Dal- 1/2 tsp
Thinly Sliced Coconut – 2 tsp
Curry Leaves – 1 sprig

Coconut Oil – as needed
salt – to taste
Sugar – 1/2 tsp(Optional-Use only if you like the curry to be a little sweet)

Method:-

Cook all the vegetables adding turmeric powder,red chilly powder,salt and enough water until soft and tender.Add cooked chickpeas into it and mix them together.Grind together grated coconut,whole red chillies and jeera seeds to a coarse paste.Add this ground paste into the cooked veggies and stir well.Switch off the stove.Mix in sugar if you are adding it.(If you are using sweet veggies like pumpkin and carrots,there’s no need to add sugar.)
Heat oil in a pan and pop the mustard seeds.Throw in dal,coconut slices and curry leaves into it and fry it till brown.Add the seasoning to the curry.Mix well and serve hot with rice.