Dearies of sinfully-desilicious, any guess on what is this month’s theme…🤔🤔😉? Next to my last week post ‘Tirunelveli’ Sodhi, comes this week ‘Theni’ Koottusaaru, hope you’ve inferred the theme, yes, I can hear you, it’s Tamilnadu district’s native special but with an interesting twist, they’re districts which start with ‘T’…sounds impressive..😍😍?
Click here to jump to recipe card!
Theni district is the orchid of Tamilnadu. It’s adorned by hilly areas and valleys, diversified ranges and hills, numerous dams and waterfalls. It shares its western regions with Kerala. Agriculture being its major occupation, no doubt it has one of its taluks named as ‘Cardamom city’ of Tamilnadu. Since agriculture is their main source of economy, farmers and their special village food become indispensable to their lifestyle. This is how this recipe struck me like a spark. Koottusaaru or Koottuthanni is basically a farmer’s food. They prepare this curry from the consumable greens which grow like weed on their farms. They prepare two dishes with one ingredient, cost-effective and economical. Are you an inquisitive person? Let me reveal it.
Koottusaaru is a 2 in 1 recipe, and it’s very handy and efficient. They cook the greens in excess water and reduce it, strain this water and prepare a curry, with the strained greens they make another dish. In a way, it reduces their effort and expenditure as they use unwanted, consumable greens grown on their farm and utilize it to make a complete and healthy meal out of it.
What is Koottusaaru? – healthy greens cooked in water are combined with a ground masala prepared from soaked raw rice and dal with shallots, tomatoes, garlic, and subtle spices. The strained greens are transformed into another dish, called Keerai/ greens poriyal with a little onion, garlic, and drizzled with grated coconut. These 2 dishes pair with rice balls or small millet balls which turn out to be an energy booster combo. It’s also popularly known as koottuthanni in the Theni region.
As I mentioned early the Theni district is predominantly a farming region, this recipe is a very handy and simple but healthy combo for the diligent and hardworking farmers.
I can claim this recipe as a package of 3 in 1 –
1) Koottusaaru/ koottuthanni – simple and subtle gravy made from greens cooked water,
2) Keerai/ greens poriyal – a dry side dish made from strained greens,
3) Ragi Kali/Mudde/ Balls or Urandai soru/ Rice balls – power-packed main course made from grain.
You can basically use any greens available at your place. Similarly, for the balls, you can use Rice or Finger millet/Kelvaragu/ Ragi. No hard and fast rules, this makes this dish so simple and convenient to make it at your ease. Hope you had a deep insight into this dish, now let’s jump into the preparation.
This curry is a very simple and quick recipe and can be prepared in a jiffy. It’s vegan and highly nutritious as it’s packed with nutrients of greens and power-packed with energy if combined with Finger millet/Kelvaragu/ Ragi kali/ mudde and Keerai/greens poriyal. No wonder why it’s a friendly recipe for farmers as it acts as an energy booster.
Being a Chennaite, I hardly had any experience of farmer’s food and lifestyle. I’m an ardent gardener who grew vegetation and flowers in my garden, and I’m longing to spend my day with farmers in a proper village. I always admire their hard work and the toil they go through in the fields. The least now I could do is to dedicate this post to all the farmers (across India and around the world). I would also dedicate my gratitude to Lakshmi amma from Theni and Suriliyammal from Kambam in the Theni district. Both are natives of Theni who were kind and patient enough to share their recipes with me. It was a great blessing for me to talk with these earnest, naive souls of this village, I really could sense the aroma of that earthy flavour from their speech…😍😍😍. Thanks to my cousin Logavel Senthilkumar and my Physio from Bahrain Mr. Sangiliraj who created this lovely opportunity to speak to these ingenuous souls of Theni.
Now let’s take a trip to nature’s cradle ‘Theni’,
Wash and soak toor dal, channa dal, and raw rice in a small bowl with enough water for min 30 minutes to 1 hour. Clean and wash the greens. Boil 4 cups of water, to this, add the cleaned greens and cook it open in medium flame till the water reduces in half. It’ll roughly take 10 minutes to yield 2-2 ½ cups of water.
Strain the water and keep the greens aside to make Keerai poriyal, a dry subzi. (Click the hyperlink for the recipe).
Now the dal and rice have soaked enough. Take a mixer jar, add cumin seeds, fennel seeds, red chilli, curry leaves.
Then add soaked dal, and rice. Grind it dry.
Later add shallots, garlic.
And add tomatoes and grind it as a semi coarse paste. (No water is needed as tomatoes balance the water content required for grinding).
Take a pan or kadai for tempering, add gingelly oil, then mustard seeds, split urad dal, cumin seeds, and curry leaves.
Once it splutters, add the strained greens stock water.
Then add ground masala, required salt, and ¼ -½ cup water as required to adjust the consistency.
Close and cook for 5- 7 minutes to get rid of the raw smell of the masala.
Then open the lid and check the salt and consistency of the curry. It shouldn’t be too thick or too thin (check the pic and video).
Switch off the flame and garnish with coriander leaves.
Serve this super easy curry with Finger millet/Kelvaragu/ Ragi kali and Keerai/greens poriyal.
It’s also a handy accompaniment to Rotis, dosas, idlis, and samba rava upma.
Recipe card
Preparation time: 5 minutes
Cooking time: 8 minutes
Cuisine: Indian, Tamilnadu
Category: Curries
Serves: 4-5
Author: Manimala
Ingredients:
For Greens stock:
Greens (any) – 1 bunch/kattu
Water – 4 cups
For Masala:
Split pigeon peas/Toor dal – 1 ½ tbsp
Split chickpeas/Channa dal – 1 ½ tbsp
Raw rice – ½ tsp
Cumin seeds – ½ tsp
Fennel seeds – ½ tsp
Whole red chilli – 5
Shallots – 1 tbsp heaped or 4 nos
Chopped garlic – ½ tsp or 2 small cloves.
Chopped tomatoes – 1 cup
Curry leaves – 1 sprig
For tempering:
Gingelly oil – 2 tbsp
Mustard seeds – ½ tsp
Split urad dal – ½ tsp
Cumin seeds – ½ tsp
Curry leaves – 1 sprig
Water – ¼ -½ cup
Instructions:
- Wash and soak toor dal, channa dal, and raw rice in a small bowl with enough water for min 30 minutes ton 1 hour.
- Clean and wash the greens. Boil 4 cups of water, to this, add the cleaned greens and cook it open in medium flame till the water reduces in half. It’ll roughly take 10 minutes to yield 2-2 ½ cups of water.
- Strain the water and keep the greens aside to make Keerai poriyal, a dry subzi. (Click the hyperlink for the recipe).
- Now the dal and rice have soaked enough. Take a mixer jar, add cumin seeds, fennel seeds, red chilli, curry leaves, soaked dal, and rice. Grind it dry.
- Later add shallots, garlic, and tomatoes and grind it as a semi coarse paste. (No water is needed as tomatoes balance the water content required for grinding).
- Take a pan or kadai for tempering, add gingelly oil, then mustard seeds, split urad dal, cumin seeds, and curry leaves.
- Once it splutters, add the strained greens stock water, ground masala, required salt, and ¼ -½ cup water as required to adjust the consistency.
- Close and cook for 5- 7 minutes to get rid of the raw smell of the masala.
- Then open the lid and check the salt and consistency of the curry. It shouldn’t be too thick or too thin (check the pic and video).
- Switch off the flame and garnish with coriander leaves.
- Serve this super easy curry with Finger millet/Kelvaragu/ Ragi kali and Keerai/greens poriyal. It’s also a handy accompaniment to Rotis, dosas, idlis, and samba rava upma.
Notes:
- As I specified early, you can use any greens from your place.
- This curry has a very simple and quick recipe and can be prepared in a jiffy. It’s vegan and highly nutritious as it’s packed with nutrients of greens and power-packed with energy if combined with Finger millet/Kelvaragu/ Ragi kali/ mudde and Keerai/greens poriyal. No wonder why it’s a friendly recipe for farmers as it acts as an energy booster.
- Here, I used 4 cups of water to boil the greens, which I reduced to 2-2 ½ cups of water. You can adjust the consistency by adding water to the curry if you feel it’s too thick.
- There is another version that uses tamarind water. I preferred to increase the tomatoes rather than adding tamarind to infuse the required tanginess in the curry. I used country tomatoes for the tanginess.
- If you prefer tamarind or due to the unavailability of country tomatoes, feel free to replace it with tamarind water and add just one tomato.
- Since this curry is subtle, don’t increase the spices more than what I’ve mentioned.
- Also, we are adding raw shallots and garlic to the masala, so close and cook the curry to get rid of the raw smell.
- For tempering, I used gingelly oil which adds an aroma and nutritive value to the curry. Still, you can substitute with any other oil.
- You will love this recipe for its simple ingredients, swift preparation, and healthy in its nutritive values.
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