Green Coconut Curry

Perhaps it’s the wide availability of coconut or perhaps it’s the typical Keralite’s weakness towards it, the Green Coconut Curry is a mainstay of Kerala kitchen. And it’s fairly, and surprisingly, simple to make too. Simple, if you have a decent blender:)

It’s also a very versatile dish. It can be the main curry that is mixed with rice or it can be a side-dish that goes well with other main curries. In its former form, it’s made a little watery, to allow mixing it with rice and the the latter form tends to be a little thick.

This recipe is based on using common green spinach as the vegetable. However you can use other vegetables too such as Winter Melon, Snake Gourd (Padavalam), Yellow Pumpkin (Mathan), etc.

Ingredients

  1. Vegetable, in our case green spinach – 300 gms
  2. Minced coconut – half a cup
  3. Red Chillies – two
  4. White lentils which is split Black Gram -1.5 table spoons
  5. Cumin Seeds – a teaspoon
  6. Turmeric Powder – half a teaspoon
  7. Split Pigeon Pea (Thur dal) – half a cup
  8. Salt – to taste

Steps

  1. Cook the Pigeon Pea. You can either use a pressure cooker or a rice cooker. We will be using this later after the vegetables are cooked. So set it aside.
  2. Shallow fry the white lentils and red chillies. When the white lentils turn brown, turn off the flame and add the minced coconut to this. Turning off the flame ensures that coconut does not get fried which will leave a distinct taste. We DON’T want this taste in our curry.
  3. Blend this together into a smooth mixture. You can add a little water to assist blending, but not too much. We’re aiming for a consistency that between a toothpaste and liquid detergent.  Set this aside.
  4. Cut the spinach into small fragments, about .5 cm ~ 1cm squares.
  5. Cook this spinach with a little water and turmeric powder. You can add the required salt to this.
  6. Once almost cooked, turn down the flame and mash the spinach. This helps build consistency and better binding of the various ingredients that we will be adding soon.
  7. Add the cooked Pigeon Pea and the blended mixture from Step 3. Mix it all well together.
  8. Let it all cook together until all the ingredients are well integrated. Take it off flame.
  9. Garnish with the standard shallow fried mustard seeds, red chillies and white lentil.
  10. Add Indian Curry leaves for flavor.

Notes

  • You can replace red chillies withe green chillies
  • Adjust the amount of coconut to individual taste and consistency. If intended as a side dish to another curry, typically more coconut is used.

    Traditional South Indian Name

    This dish is traditionally known as Mulakootal in Kerala.