Ende Kushini: Kothavarakkai Paruppu Usli

Wednesday 27 September 2017

Kothavarakkai Paruppu Usli

As I have been saying vegetarians include a lot of lentils in their day-to-day cuisine. This paruppu usli is a signature dish of the Iyengars down south. I have seen this paruppu usli made often in many of my friend's house; but my mom never used to make it. I have learnt it from my friend's mom and have been often making it. This is a very good side-dish for rasam and rice. I love to have it just with rice and some papad.

Paruppu usli can be made with any vegetable. That too green vegetables are the best. I have made this with beans, long yard beans, kovakkai (tindora), cabbage and the latest with kothavarakkai. In paruppu usli the main ingredient is channa dal. This is gound, steamed and added to the vegetable. We can also use a combination of dals here like a mixture of toor dal, moong dal and channa dal. Onions are optional here. I have made it the typical Iyengar way - so onion and no garlic is used here.

Ingredients:

Kothavarakkai / cluster beans - 250 grams

Oil - 2 tsp

Mustard - 1 tsp

Urad dal - 1 tsp

Curry leaves - few

Coconut (grated) - 2 tbsp

Salt - to taste

Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp

To grind:

Toor dal - 1/4 cup

Channa dal - 1/2 cup

Dry red chillies - 2 nos

Asafoetida powder - 1/4 tsp

Salt - to taste

Method:

Soak the toor dal and channa dal for about an hour.
Grind the dals along with other ingredients listed under "To grind" without adding water to a coarse paste.
Make small balls of the grounded paste and steam cook for 7-8minutes in a idli cooker.
Remove the cooked dal balls. One cool, smash them, keep aside.
In a kadi, add oil. Once the oil is hot add mustard.
Once mustard splutters, add the urad dal and curry leaves.
Add the chopped kothavarakkai, salt and turmeric powder.
Sprinkle some water; cover and cook until the kothavarakkai is cooked well.
Add the smashed dal, and grated coconut. Mix well and cook for another 4-5 minutes until the dal is blended well..