Chettinad Masala Kootu

Generally children prefer to take stir-fried vegetables like poriyal or varuval, and they give least importance to the steamed or boiled vegetables like kootu. So we can encourage them to take kootu by making it spicy and flavourful. Here I have shared chettinad style masala kootu liked even by the kids who refuse to take vegetables. This is one of our favorite kootu recipes, so I would like to prepare masala kootu with the vegetables like cabbages, native melons & gourds that are not liked by my family.

Now I have prepared pudalangai (snake gourd) masala kootu that can be served as a side for rice, dosai, poori or roti. It usually goes well with any sambar, rasam or kuzhambu.

Snake gourds (pudalangkai) are well known for producing body fluid, hence they are useful to keep our body hydrated. So it can be ideally taken during summer and may be avoided during monsoon. Now let’s prepare pudalangai kootu that helps to keep our body cool in this hot summer:

Chettinad Masala Kootu Recipe:

Cooking Time: 30 min
Serves: 4

Ingredients:

1. Snake gourd (pudalangai) – 3 pieces (each one foot length)
2. Cooked green gram – 1/4 cup
3. Cooked black eyed beans (karamani or thatta payaru) – 1/4 cup
4. Salt – 3/4 tsp

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For masala:

1. Coconut oil – 1 tsp
2. Fennel seeds – 1/4 tsp
3. Onion – 1 No
4. Tomato – 2 Nos.
5. Green chillies – 2 Nos.
6. Red chilli powder – 1/2 tsp
7. Turmeric powder – 1/4 tsp
8. Coconut – 4 pieces (each 1″)

For tempering:

1. Coconut oil – 1 tsp
2. Mustard seeds – 1/4 tsp
3. Curry leaves – 1 sprig
4. Red chilli – 1 No.

Mise en place:

(i) Preparing the vegetable: 

• Wash gourd and scrape off its snowy top layer.
• Half them vertically and remove its soft fibers & seeds.
• Cut them into strips & chop the strips into cubes as shown in the images below.
• Steam them in a steamer until they cooked soft and keep aside.

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(ii) Preparing masala: Please refer the ingredients listed under “For Masala”

• Chop onion & tomatoes into large cubes, and green chillies & coconut meat roughly.
• Heat a pan with oil and add fennel seeds.
• Add chopped onion & green chillies until onion turns translucent.
• Then add red chilli powder & turmeric powder and saute for 10 sec.
• Add chopped tomatoes & saute till they turn mushy.
• Remove from flame and keep aside till it reaches room temperature.
• In a mixer-grinder jar add coconut, sauteed onion & tomatoes and grind into a smooth paste by adding little water.

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How to prepare Chettinad masala kootu:

• Heat a pan with steamed vegetable in low flame.
• Add cooked green gram and mix well.
• Stir in masala paste.
• Then add salt & hot water* to get the required consistency and cook in medium flame.
• Add cooked black eyed peas and bring to a final boil.
• Finally add the tempering and mix well.
• Remove the pan from heat.
• Serve hot masala kootu with rice, poori or roti.

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* You can use left-over hot water while steaming vegetables (or while pressure cooking lentils).

Masala Kootu – Variations:

• Chettinad masala kootu may be prepared with other vegetables like ash gourd (vellai poosani), pumpkin (manjal poosani), ridge gourd (peerkangai), bottle gourd (suraikai), chayote (chow-chow), cucumber (vellari), or cabbage (muttakose).

• We can use Bengal gram (kadalai paruppu), or any dried legumes (payaru) or fresh beans like peas, double beans, butter beans, soya beans, etc. instead of karamani.

Cooking tips:

1. I have pressure cooked green gram lentils & black eyed beans with little salt separately.
2. I used green chillies for flavor, red chilli powder for color; if you want you may use any one of them alone.