I had picked up this bag of frozen pigeon peas from the local Indian store here, though I had no clue as to what I would be doing with it. I had my Mom’s recipe for a curry in which she uses Avarekayi/val beans. I was going through my recipe book and I came upon this recipe & I decided to tweak it a little bit and the end result was pretty good, I must say!
Ingredients
- Frozen pigeon peas - 1 lb
- Potato - 1, cubed
- Cauliflower - few florets
- Salt to taste
- Masala :-
- Grated coconut - 1 tblsp
- Cumin seeds - 1 tsp
- Cilantro - 1 small bunch
- Rice flour - 1/2 tblsp
- Onions - 2 medium sized, roughly chopped
- Cinnamon - 1 " piece
- Cloves - 4
- Coriander seeds - 1/2 tblsp
- Poppy seeds (khus khus) - 1 tsp
- Garlic - 4 cloves
- Ginger - 1 " piece
- Green chillies - 6 (or depending on your taste)
- Oil - 1 tsp
- Seasoning:-
- Clarified butter (ghee) - 1 tblsp
- Mustard seeds - 1 tsp
- Curry leaves - 1 sprig
Instructions
Pressure cook the pigeon peas and potatoes adding little salt to it (one 'whistle' should do).
In a pan, heat oil and add the ingredients from onions to green chillies and fry till the onions get soft and spices smell fragrant. Set aside to cool.
When cool, blend the above onion and spice mixture with the grated coconut, cumin seeds, cilantro and rice flour.
In a wide pan, heat the clarified butter/ghee and season with mustard seeds. When the seeds splutter, put in the curry leaves.
After a few seconds, pour the blended masala into this and fry well for 5 minutes.
Add the precooked pigeon peas and potatoes, also add the cauliflower florets at this time and bring to a boil. More salt can be added at this time if needed.
Serve hot with white rice or it goes very well with rotis.
- Note:- I add cauliflower towards the end because it tends to get cooked pretty quickly and I also like it to retain its shape and not get mushy.
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