Aviyal - mixture of vegetables in exotic coconut sauce..!!

Aviyal is an inevitable part of Kerala cuisine.. One of the essentials in the Kerala Sadya/feast. It is a mixture of many vegetables lightly spiced with a special coconut gravy and flavoured in coconut oil and curry leaves. The vegetables commonly used are carrots, cucumber, raw banana, yam, drum sticks and ivy gourd.

In my recipe of avial here, i have used carrot, cucumber ,raw banana and ivy gourd.

Ingredients You need:

One Cucumber

Carrots - 2nos

Raw banana - 1no

ivy gourd - 8 nos

Turmeric powder – ½ tsp

Chilly powder - 1 tsp

3 sprigs of curry leaves

Finely grated Coconut – 1 cup

Green chillies – 6

Cumin seeds – 1/4 teaspoon

Small onions - 4 nos

Coconut oil – 2 tbsp

Sour Curd or small piece of tamarind ( I normally use tamarind as the curd we get here is not that sour)

Salt - to taste

Preparation

• Put tamarind ball (small size) in some hot water for the juice.
• Cut all the vegetables into 1 inch length pieces.
• Put all the cut vegetables in a pan with the turmeric powder, chilly powder and salt and boil (Add enuf water to cook the veggies)
• To prepare the coconut mixture put grated coconut, chopped small onions, green chillies, a sprig of curry leaves and cumin seeds into a blender and grind it into a crushed form.
• When theveggies are almost cooked, the water will evaporated by then, add the extracted tamarind juice and boil for 2-3 minutes.
• Now add the crushed coconut mixture into the cooked veggies and allow the coconut flavor to blend in with the veggies. Cover it cooked till the water is evaporated and veggies are well cooked. Do a salt test.
• Finally add the coconut oil and the remaining curry leaves to the aviyal which brings in the real flavour of kerala cusine.

I am sending this Aviyal to WYF Side dish event