Aviyal

My mom is a wonderful cook. It is not only about the taste. Her cooking has a methodology. She is a person of exact measurements. If you were to ask her a recipe, you would hear her say, ‘a tsp of this, a tbsp of that, ½ cup of this.......... etc’. This makes it easy for advise-seekers like me not only to get a dish right the first time, but also successfully replicate it several times in future.

This aviyal recipe, which serves four, comes from my cooking diary which is a store-house of a lot of my mom’s lovely recipes. This aviyal was the result of a telephone conversation with my mom some three years back. For some strange reason, I could never get down to making it till this morning.

Aviyal, a festive dish, is nothing but a medley of variety of chopped vegetables cooked in a coconut-green chilli sauce. The strong flavour of coconut oil is the highlight of this dish. It goes great with any variety of mixed rice like coconut rice, tamarind rice, sambar rice, or even plain rice. Avial is a great accompaniment to adai also. Though this avial has a daunting list of vegetables, I used only about 5 – 6 types (whatever I had handy).

Ingredients:

Potato: 1 No
Carrot (big): 1 No
Beans: 7 - 8 Nos
Colocassia / Arbi: 5 - 6 Nos
Elephant yam: 3/4 cup chopped
Green peas: handful
Cauliflower: 7 – 8 florets
Drumstick: 4 – 5 pieces
Red pumpkin: 3/4 cup chopped
White pumpkin: 3/4 cup chopped
Chou-chou: 3/4 cup chopped
Cluster beans: 7- 8 No
Sweet potato: 1 No
Mocchai (hyacinth bean): handful
Curry leaves: 1 sprig
Coconut oil: 2 tbsp
Curd: ½ cup

To grind:
Green chillis: 4 Nos
Coconut (grated): 1 cup or more or less as desired

Method:

Wash, peel and chop all these vegetables in a slightly longish fashion.
Add a cup of water, some salt and a pinch of turmeric.
Pressure cook the vegetables for three whistles.
Now heat the pressure cooker or another kadai.
Add the cooked vegetables and curry leaves with the vegetable stock and bring to a boil.
Add the ground chilli-coconut paste and bring to a boil.
Add the curd and bring to a boil.
Adjust salt and switch off the flame.
Now drizzle coconut oil over it and mix well.
Aviyal is super-ready to be served with anything you wish!

Since this recipe is from a bookmark, this bowl of aviyal goes to ‘Bookmarked Recipes – Every Tuesday’ event by Priya Mitharwal.