Vegetable stew, Kerala style

The creamy stew is an ideal side dish for parotta, idiyappam and appam. This one includes potato, beans, carrot and peas. The sketch in the background is by my daughter. She says to dream big!

The exotic constituents of the stew are...

Coconut oil - 1 Tbsp

Cinnamon - 1 small stick

Green cardamom - 1

Aniseed - 1 petal

Cloves - 2

Spring onions - 4 stalks with leaves

Ginger - 1/2 inch

Garlic - 4 cloves

Curry leaves - a handful

Potato - 2

Beans - 5

Carrot - 2

Green peas, frozen - 1/4 cup

Coconut milk - 1/2 cup

Water - a splash

Salt - 1/4 tsp

Pepper, freshly crushed - 1/2 tsp

The procedure..

Boil potatoes, peel and discard skin. Cube them. Trim ends of beans and peel carrots. Cut beans and carrots into half inch long strips. Microwave carrot, beans and peas with some water for 5 minutes. This process cooks them.

Heat a deep-bottomed saucepan and drizzle oil. When the oil gets hot, throw in the whole spices; cardamom, cinnamon, cloves and aniseed. After a minute, add in minced ginger and garlic, and curry leaves. Chop the onion bulbs of the spring onions and cast them in. Stir for 3 minutes. Before the onions starts to brown, add in potatoes, beans, carrot and peas. Pour in coconut milk and water. Add in chopped spring onion leaves, salt and pepper. Stir to combine. Serve hot.

We had our vegetable stew with vella cheratta puttu.