Avial With DrumStick Leaves. (Kerala Style)

A bloggers nightmare happened to me in the form of computer crash....you can imagine the chaos that gave me for a whole week.....pictures that were yet to be posted in the drafts.....pictures I had photo-shopped.....everything just disappeared....bingo!!

Today, I am sharing with you avial or mixed vegetable curry which I made yesterday for lunch.....and yes I missed blogging.....missed you all!!.

Avial is Kerala's special vegetarian dish. It is a dish with a mixture of various vegetables in curd/yogurt with ground coconut, green chillies, cumin seeds and seasoned with coconut oil. The list of vegetables that can be used in this dish is rather long, from raw banana to pumpkin (white or yellow), potatoes, beans, carrot, yam, carrot, drumstick, eggplant/brinjal, ....basically this dish is good way to use left over vegetables

There is also a story behind this dish; it is supposed to have been invented by Bhima (one of the Pandava brothers) during their exile. According to the legend, when Ballav (Bhima's name during this time) assumed his duties as the cook in the kitchen of Virata, did not know how to cook. One of the first things he did was to chop up many different vegetables, boil them together and top the dish with grated coconut. There is a mythology variation. Bheema is said to have prepared Avial, when there were unexpected guests for King Virata and he needed to serve meals for them. There was no sufficient vegetables to cook any single recipe for side dish, so Bheema used what ever available vegetables to make a new dish, which came to known as Avial.

Source: Wikipedia.

Recently a friend gave me some drumstick leaves (which has become a scarcity after we shifted to our apartment) and while I was making avail for lunch, I added 2 handfuls of leaves to it....thought I will share this with you today.

Note: This a mixed vegetable dish, almost all the vegetables can be added. This is one vegetable dish where you can play around with vegetables...just wanted to show you that you can add even drumstick leaves to make it more nutritive.
During Mango season, you can add half a raw mango but then avoid the tamarind juice as mango itself gives the sourness the curry needs.

Vegan Version: Use tamarind juice instead of curd.

Ingredients:
Potato: 2.
Raw Banana: 2.
French Beans: 100 gms
Carrot: 2.
Drumstick: 4.
Onion: 1
Tomato: 1.
Indian Brinjal: 2.
Green Chillies: 2.
Yam: A small piece.
Drumstick leaves: 2 hand full.
Garlic: 3 or 4 cloves.
Water: About 1 cup.
Curd: 1/2 cup or tamarind juice 2 tbsp.
Coconut oil: 1 tbsp.
Curry leaves.

To Grind:
Grated coconut: 1 cup.
Jeera: 1/2 tsp.
Green Chillies: 2 or 3.( I used kandari mulaku or birds eye chilly and is extremely pungent.)
Turmeric Powder: 1/4 tsp.
Button onion: 2 or 3 (optional).

Method:

Grind all this with a little water coarsely and keep aside

.Cut all the veggies about 1.5 inch in size, lengthwise. Add salt, turmeric and water and cover and cook for 10 min or until all the veggies are cooked through. Add the curd and the grinded coconut. Stir well. Simmer for a few minutes.

Sprinkle curry leaves and drizzle 1 tbsp of coconut oil and switch off the fire. There should be a little gravy.

Serve warm with rice.

You might be interested in Dal Curry With Drumstick Leaves.