Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Vaazhaipoo Parupu Usili

This is one of my favourite curry! Sometimes makes me wonder how eating habits have evolved over the ages! Our ancestors must have been the most passionate towards eating and testing various cuisines. If not, we would not have been introduced to such delicacies. The plantain is such a wonderful plant, that all of its products are edible in some form or other....Its leaves, fruits(raw and ripe), its stem (thandu) and its flower....How much more can a plant be edible!


Ingredients:

- 1 banana flower
- 1/4 cup toor dhal
- 1/4 cup channa dhal
- 3 to 4 dry red chilly
- 1/8 tsp turmeric
- 2 tsp oil
- few curry leaves
- Mustard, urad dhal and hing for seasoning
- Salt to taste

Prep time: 45 mins to 1 hour               Cook time: 40 mins

Preparation:

-  How to chop the veggie...the details are in the "vazhaipoo vadai" recipe. Please check the link. Ofcourse, the flower is generally pink in colour in its fresh state. However, the ones we get here, are usually not all that fresh...generally this pale yellow

- Soak the dhals together for minimum 20 minutes and grind them into a coarse paste, adding as little water a possible.
- Add the turmeric, salt, hing and red chilly along with the dhal before grinding.
- Grease a steaming plate, and place the ground dhal like idli batter and steam for 7 to 10 mins.

- On steaming, remove from heat and let it cool. Once cool, loosen it up with a laddle or in a processor.
- Simultaneously,  boil the chopped banana flower in a pan ( add salt to taste). The veggie would boil in about 15 mins on medium heat.
- Once done, drain it in a strainer and let it cool too.

- Now, in a wide pan, heat the oil and add the urad dhal and mustard. Once the mustard crackles, add the loosened dhal and keep frying it on medium for 5 minutes. Add the curry leaves along.

- Once the dhal is well roasted, add the drained veggie to this and keep frying for another 4 to 5 minutes on low-medium heat.
- The Vazhaipoo parupu usili is now ready to eat!



Foot note:
- The parupu usili can be made with other veggies like cabbage, beans, cluster beans(kothavarangai)...Have given below the pic of the cluster beans usili that I had made sometime back as well....

- The parupu usili can be had plain with a side of curd. However, it goes as a very good accompaniment with Mor kuzhambu or Vetha kuzhambu too!

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1 comment:

  1. healthy dish..very new to me..nice presentation. thanks for linking with my event.

    ReplyDelete