Paal Kootu - Quick n Easy

Today being a Saturday meant this was a vegetarian day, and cooking vegetarian food for just the two of us is easy.
I had a glut of tomatoes from my last visit to the poly tunnel. Quite a good harvest really which was - two bowls of red cherry tomatoes, a small punnet of black cherry toms, and loads of green tomatoes! Reason for the glut of green toms, is cos I needed the space in the veg bed for planting my winter veg of chinese cabbages, some florence fennel and kohlrabi. As there is only so much space in the polytunnel I had to free up the space by sacrificing my green tomatoes. I knew they wouldn't have a chance of ripening on account of the lousy weather and shortening days.

Green tomatoes is not an ingredient I cook often with, in fact I do not know anyone in our circle of friends who does. The last time I had green tomatoes was almost 10 years ago, when I was at work in India. One of my junior friends would have his lunch delivered to the workplace, and this was from a 'mess'. This meant he had a huge tiffin carrier, each compartment filled with rice, sambar, rasam, poriyal, kootu, puli kuzhambu, moor kuzhambu, pickle, pachadi etc. with a fresh rolled banana leaf, and appalams everyday! Course he couldn't eat it all by himself could he? We were all too happy to help him finish it.

It was during one such lunch time - we all shared what we had as was the norm! that I had a taste of a kootu made with green tomatoes. It was the first time I had eaten the preparation and liked it a lot, and regret to say that I have never thought of making it till now!


Ingredients

1 cup gram dal
2 cups green tomatoes
1 ripe red tomato or 2 - 3 tbsp tinned chopped tomato
1 cup onions finely chopped
4 green chillies slit lengthwise
Mustard, jeera and oil for tadka
1/4 spoon asofetida
Curry leaves a sprig
2 Tbsp grated coconut, roughly ground
1/2 cup milk (or more)

Let me describe how I made it. I washed and soaked the dal for a half hour and cooked with the green tomatoes in the pressure cooker till done. After the pressure was reached, I reduced the heat and let it stay on heat for 10 mins and then removed from the stove.

I left the cherry tomatoes whole, using a knife to make a slit down one side. To all appearances the tomatoes seem whole, and they retain this shape when cooked as well.

In a pan, heated some oil, added the asofetida, mustard and jeera. When they started to pop added the chopped onions and slit green chillies and curry leaves. Fried these for a few minutes, removed half and transferred to the mixer and crushed this coarsely.

To the onions in the fry pan, I added the chopped red tomato, some turmeric covered the pan and let it cook for a few minutes. While this was cooking, ground the onion mixture and added to the pan along with the ground coconut and fried briefly.

Finally added the cooked dal and once the mixture came to a simmer, I poured the milk and let it cook for a further couple of minutes.

This kootu needs to be of a consistency such that it can be mixed with rice and eaten. So adjust the water content accordingly. The amount of milk too can be altered to suit individual taste. When serving children, I find they like it when I increase the quantity of milk. Not only is this tasty, but v nutritious as well.

I served this with plain boiled rice and a lovely keerai poriyal - made with Black Tuscan Kale which I had brought from ? Yes you guessed it from the polytunnel!

My husband likes this preparation very much and says that it reminds him of the Muringai keerai we used to get when in Madras. I will post this recipe another time!