Kadala Paruppu Kootu - Click Wood!

Am in a hurry - getting late for office but today being the last day for click - the monthly thematic photography event conducted by the Jugalbandits, here is today's kootu which also goes to Srivalli for MM - kids lunches. Will post the recipe this evening!!

P's already in the car and honking!!! Damn! the click page isn't opening:( :) Hey it did:)!!

Canon - 350D - Kit lens - 18-55mm macro.

Kadala paruppu kootu - Jr.P's favourite!!

Thanks for the lovely comments! I meant to update the recipe last evening but somehow could not make time for it as I was floured(pun intended) yesterday with the idea of making 'Bangalore Iyengar Bakery's' masala bread!

Whenever I need to clear up all the veggies in my refrigerator I do not think much. It has to be a vegetable pulav if I am in a lazy mood, a molagootal, kootu or pav bhaji if I am in a better mood. Yesterday was one such day.

Now, being a Tamilian (coconut lover kind) married to a Mangalorean (another area famous for its huge coconuts) it is rather hard to restrain oneself from the nutty addiction and yet I did, for many years till my children started their twenty day summer visits to my parents' house. My Mother's cooking contains a rich coconut gravy or a generous coconut garnishing almost every other day, and in those twenty days that they spend with her my children get so enchanted with this nut that they cannot do without complaints about my cooking.

Everytime he sees his daddy scraping coconuts my son's face lights up with a smile because he knows it is going to be a Palakkad dish that day. It is because of my children that this North Indian food lover has shifted so heavily to traditional cooking! When he saw kootu in his lunch box my son was thrilled. The kid has such simple tastes - all he needs is curd rice and any coconut rich vegetable to keep him satisfied!

Ingredients:
(To serve four - two adults and two kids and sometimes the adults act as though they are full when they see that the kids 'extra love' their kootu that day!)

Chopped (cubed) medley of vegetables - 3 cups
(2 carrots, 2 potatoes, A generous piece of yam (elephant's foot), a generous slice of ashgourd, fistful of shelled peas, few french beans, chopped jackfruit seeds) - no onions or garlic please!
Fresh scraped coconut - 1 cup
Cooked bengal gram - 3/4 cup
Green chillies - 1 (more if you like spicy food)
Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp
Salt to taste

Seasoning:
Coconut oil - 1tsp.
Mustard seeds - 1 tsp.
Split dehusked black gram - 1 tsp.
A few curry leaves
Dry red chillies - optional

Method:
Cook the vegetables with enough water, salt and turmeric till soft.
Meanwhile grind the scraped coconut and green chillies to a very rough mixture. with very little or no water at all Not more than one or two short turns in the grinder - should not be smooth like chutney paste. You should be able to see the coconut shavings.
Mix the vegetables with the cooked lentils and the coconut mixture. This is a semi-dry side dish so discard excess water from the lentils (use it in rasam or sambar). The prepared mixture should not retain more than 1/2 cup of liquid.
Heat the coconut oil (nothing else will do), add mustard seeds and black gram dal till the seeds splutter and the gram dal turns pink, add curry leaves. Season the kootu and mix.
Serve hot with rice and rasam/sambar.

Tip:
Cook rice and dal together in a cooker on one burner, while cooking the vegetables in the other. While this is happening, ready your coconut mixture. Things are more organized this way.