Kaalan – Yogurt Curry with Ground Coconut

We just got back from an extended weekend break in Las Vegas. Yes, the 10th anniversary celebration was in our favorite city in the whole world. What, you don’t think it is a romantic city? It sure is, for us at least! As much as Siv and I love each other, we have totally different hobbies and interests, except for two major ones – food and poker. Where else can you get the best of both these?

We have been to Vegas plenty of times, in fact before 2007 we used to go there about 3-4 times every year. We took a New Year resolution in 2007 to take a much needed break from poker; it was starting to feel like an addiction. This blog has been a major help in keeping me away from the tables, let’s just say that one addiction got replaced by another. After a year and a half with absolutely no poker, not even a home game, we felt that we could safely go back to playing it for fun. And that is exactly what we did this time, got our fill of the game, made some money in the process, got back home and left it right behind us.

We stayed at the Bellagio this time; I have to say by far this is my favorite hotel in Vegas when it comes to customer service. They had no problems at all to accommodate our early check-in (8 am) and late check-out (2 pm) requests, they didn’t even act like they were doing us a favor as most other hotels do when faced with such requests. The room was fabulous, but my favorite room is still TheHotel at Mandalay Bay, with a separate living room and flat screen TV in all the rooms, including the loo!

The foodie part of the trip was great as well, we tried three Michelin rated restaurants this time, Michael Mina and Le Cirque at the Bellagio and Bobby Flay’s Mesa Grill at Caesars Palace,  the reviews coming up later as soon as I download the pics and sort through. We also had lunch with Johnny Chan at the Noodles restaurant in Bellagio, obviously in town for the WSOP. Okay, I lie, we didn’t really have lunch with him, he was dining with his family on the table next to ours, but the tables were so close it was almost like being at the same table. I had forgotten my camera in the room for that meal, but even otherwise we wouldn’t have disturbed him for a picture while he was dining with his family. It really was exciting to be so close to a celebrity, ok, if you don’t follow poker you won’t have any idea what I am talking about, so I won’t digress much and get back to food.

As much as we enjoyed all the fine food, after three days of non-stop action with very little sleep, I was all ready for some comfort food. We got back home only at about 2:00 am on Tuesday morning, as usual my bad travel luck got into play and our flight was delayed by 2 hours. I had smartly taken Tuesday off, since I knew that I will really need to catch up on my sleep. Siv had to go to work early morning, poor guy, but I slept in till noon and woke up with some major craving for simple home-cooked food. With what I could find in the fridge, here is what I whipped up, Kaalan and a spicy potato fry with white rice.

Kaalan is a classic Kerala vegetarian delight, a must have dish in Sadhya, the traditional Kerala feast. Incidentally I got a request for this recipe from three different people in the past few weeks. It is a very simple recipe, and tastes heavenly with rice and a simple spicy stir fry. I normally make a moru curry without coconut which is even simpler, but I really had to post a recipe here before people start forgetting that this is indeed a food blog. So I went through the whole shebang of grinding coconut et all and I must say the effort (if you can call it that) was totally worth it.

I used cucumber in my version, since that is what I had in the fridge. You can also use plantain, yam, different types of gourds etc. or mango or pineapple for a sweet and sour version. Plantains are the best choice in my opinion.

Ingredients

• 1 large cucumber skinned and seeded and cut into large cubes
  (substitute with plantain/yam/mango/pineapple)
• 3 small Thai green chilies slit
• 1/4 tsp red chili powder
• 1/4 tsp turmeric powder
• salt to taste
• 3 cups yogurt stirred well
• To Grind
• 3/4 cup grated coconut (fresh/frozen available in Indian grocery stores)
• 1/4 tsp cumin seeds
• For Seasoning
• 1 tbsp oil
• 1/4 tsp mustard seeds
• 1/4 tsp fenugreek seeds
• 3 whole dry red chilies
• a few curry leaves

Method

Grind the coconut and cumin seeds with just enough water to make a really smooth paste.

Cook the vegetables with the green chilies, red chili and turmeric powders, salt and a cup of water in a large saucepan till the vegetables are tender.

Add the ground coconut paste to the saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and cook for two minutes. Stir in the yogurt and mix well. Cook on low heat till the liquid is heated through, but do not let it boil otherwise the yogurt will curdle. Remove from the heat.

In a frying pan, heat the oil and add the mustard seeds. When these start to splutter, add the rest of the seasoning ingredients and fry till the chilies turn dark brown. Pour this over the curry and mix well.

This curry keeps well in the refrigerator for couple of days. Do not reheat, just bring it back to room temperature before serving with warm rice.

Blog Events

Sending this over to the event Frozen Yogurt hosted by Siri of Siri’s corner, such a bundle of energy; she manages to make me feel old and lazy.

This is also my entry for AFAM – Coconut hosted by Suganya of the beautiful food porn blog Tasty Palettes . AFAM stands for A Fruit A Month, an event started by Maheswari of Beyond the Usual. 

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Category: Coconut, India - Kerala, Side Dish - Gravy, Vegetarian