Keera Vadai / Lentils and Spinach Vada Recipe

What better way to start a Monday than talk about deep fried snacks?

However, this recipe, like a few others, is going to begin with a disclaimer. I don't claim that this is the authentic keera vadai recipe that all Tamilians are probably proud of. I used what I had in the pantry and whatever took the fancy.

What I can guarantee is that its super simple and very crunchy. An ideal, quick tea-time snack.

Its also quite crazy in a way that you can customize all you want.

I used amaranth leaves / mulai keerai. I like the flavour and use it in pretty much all dishes that call for spinach / keerai.

This picture reminds me how long back I made this recipe.

My cutting board is not even close to its original colour that's seen here!

I also used channa dal / kadala paruppu in this recipe although most vadai recipes call for toor dal or peas paruppu, which amma is what most South Indian restaurants use because its a much cheaper alternative to the expensive toor dal.

Soaked Channa Dal

I love the way it brings a smile on TH's face when I talk deep frying. Something about dunking stuff into hot oil and then eating it makes that man happy. So happy that he even stood by patiently while I took 83 different angles of the following picture.

Lentil and Spinach Vadai / Keera Vadai Recipe

Makes about 18-20

What I Used:

2 cups channa dal / kadala paruppu

1 bunch spinach leaves, tough stalks removed

1 onion, finely chopped

2 green chillies, finely chopped

1" piece of ginger, grated or finely chopped

10-12 curry leaves, finely chopped

Salt to taste

Oil for deep frying

How I Made It:

1. Clean and soak the chana dal in water for an hour. Meanwhile, wash spinach and place in a pan over lot heat until the leaves wilt. Then, chop finely.

2. Once soaked, drain completely and pulse the dal in a mixer or food processor into a coarse paste. To give the vadai some texture, I keep about 1 tbsp dal aside and add it after pulsing the rest.

3. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix well.

4. Shape into lime-sized balls and flatten slightly. Deep fry in oil until golden brown. Drain and serve hot with chutney.

I haven't posted the recipe for this chutney before so here goes:

For the Coconut Chutney:

Grind together 1/2 cup grated coconut (fresh or frozen but not dessicated), 1 green chilli, a small piece of tamarind, 2 shallots and salt with very little water. I also added some fresh coriander leaves to this but its optional. We love the flavour so if I have fresh coriander leaves, I always add them.

I make this chutney very often and it goes well with dosa, idly and even medhu vadai.

Tomato Spinach Pulao - Step by Step Recipe

Whenever I post step-by-step recipes for baking, most of you love it, try it and give me your thoughts. I have been itching to do the same for normal recipes too, but the only reason stopping me was the poor lighting in my kitchen. After many months of giving myself this excuse, I decided to go ahead and do it anyway.

Because of this, you will see pictures with different lighting in this post, so bear with me. Hopefully you find it useful (not the lighting, the recipe!)

After all that talk, I'm hungry. Let's have a nice bowl of hot tomato spinach pulao, shall we? If you want to skip the pictures and yada-yada, scroll to the end of this post for the recipe in one place.

Ok. First, chop 4 cups of green spinach, 2 tomatoes and grate 1 carrot and set aside (ignore the green chillies, we don't need them, unless you want to use them and reduce the amount of red chilly powder in the recipe).

Heat 1 tbsp oil in a kadai.

Add 1 sliced onion and 3 cloves of chopped garlic to this.

Fry until the onions turn transparent and brown slightly.

Time to bring out the 2 chopped tomatoes. Add these to the fried onions.

Cook well until the tomatoes have wilted and turned soft.

To this, add 1 tbsp coriander powder and 1 tsp jeera. Mix well.

Time to spice things up a bit. Bring out your red chilly powder and add about 2 tsp of that. Go on, dare yourself and add another tsp if you wish ;)

We've already added 2 tomatoes but since this is tomato spinach pulao, we will need a more dense tomato flavour. Canned tomato paste works best.

Add 1 tbsp of that and mix well. If you don't want to use the paste, add 1 more large tomato in the first step.

To this, add the chopped spinach and..

.. grated carrot and mix well.

Close the kadai and let it cook on medium-low fire for about 10 mins. Don't add any water, the spinach will give out its own water while cooking making the mixture soft.

Open kadai carefully after 10 mins and add salt.

Add about 3 cups cooked rice to this mixture. I used basmati rice but any rice will do, even warmed leftover rice.

Gently fold from one side so that the rice isn't mashed up too much.

Garnish with some roasted cashwes and serve hot. I roasted the cashewnuts in the microwave on medium power for a minute. Saves time and oil.

Here's the pulao recipe again, all in one place.

Tomato Spinach Pulao

Serves: 3 to 4

What I Used:

3 cups cooked rice

4 cups chopped green spinach

1 grated carrot

2 chopped tomatoes

1 tbsp tomato paste (or add another tomato)

1 sliced onion

3 cloves chopped garlic

1 tbsp coriander powder / malli podi / dania powder

1 tsp jeera / jeerakam / cumin seeds

2 tsp red chilly powder

1 tbsb oil

Roasted cashewnuts to garnish (optional)

Salt to taste

How I Made It:

1. Heat oil and fry the onions and garlic for 3 mins. Add the tomatoes to this and cook well until soft and mashed.

2. Add the coriander powder, jeera and red chilly powder. Mix well and fry for 2 mins. Add tomato paste to this, if using, and mix well.

3. Add chopped spinach and grated carrot. Close and cook for 10 mins until soft.

4. Add salt and cooked rice to this. Fold gently and serve after 3o mins, garnished with roasted cashewnuts.

Sri Lankan Palak Dal Recipe

Ever since Siri hosted AWED Sri Lanka Recipes event, I got hooked to the cuisine. I had borrowed a book and this is the third recipe I tried from it. A simple palak dal recipe (lentils and spinach) but enhanced in true Sri Lankan way not to mention the addition of the ever-present coconut milk.

Fresh Green Spinach

The book I had only mentioned dal and I wasn't sure which dal they were referring to. So I used toor dal. You could also try this with moong dal and get a totally different flavour. Yummy either ways, I am sure.

Soaked Toor Dal

Sri Lankan Palak Dal /Lentils with Spinach
Preparation time: 40 mins
Serves: 2 to 4

What I Used:

1.5 cups toor dal
A big bunch of spinach, chopped (about 4 cups loosely packed)
1 small onion, chopped fine
1 small tomato, chopped fine
2 dried red chillies
2 garlic pods, crushed
A 1" piece of cinnamon
1/2 tsp cumin seeds / jeera
1.5 cups light coconut milk
Salt to taste

For tempering:

2 tsp oil
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
A few pieces of rampe/pandan leaves or curry leaves

How I Made It:

1. The first step is to cook the lentils. Usually I use pressure cooker but for this recipe, its important not to cook them mushy. So, add about 4 cups water to the 1.5 cups toor dal and soak for an hour. Then, keep on a medium fire to cook for about 20-25 mins. The lentils should be cooked yet stay as individual pods.

2. Heat oil and add the ingredients for tempering. Once the mustard seeds start popping, add the cinnamon, chillies, garlic, jeera and onions. Fry until onions turn transparent.

3. Then add the tomatoes and mix well for another minute. Add the chopped spinach now and lower fire. Let it wilt and reduce in size. Keep stirring till the it mixes well with the rest of the added ingredients.

4. Now add the cooked lentils and combine gently. Bring to boil. Reduce fire and add the coconut milk and salt. You can add some chilli powder if you'd like more heat. Simmer for 5 mins and remove from fire.

Serve hot with steamed white rice or roti.

This is my entry to MLLA-13 conceived by Susan of the "Well-Seasoned Cook" and currently being hosted by Sunshinemom of "Tongue Ticklers".

Keerai Masiyal - Cheera Curry - Mashed Spinach Curry

This is a true blue Tamil Brahmin recipe and a great and easy way to include greens in your weeknight dinners. I used Amaranth Leaves for this, since they are always available in the Chinese wet markets here. Amaranth, also known as pigweed (anyone else find that name strange?)in English, Thotakura in Telugu, Araikeerai or Mulaikeerai in Tamil, is fast becoming my favorite kind of leaf-food. What's even better is, they are available cleaned and it just requires me to lightly wash it before cooking, as opposed to the tedious process of cutting the roots off and going inch by inch over the vegetable from root to tip looking for a grain of sand you are inevitably bound to miss and your husband is sure to bite into first thing at dinner.

Chopped Amaranth Leaves

I used amaranth leaves to make Palak Paneer too and this time around, didn't have the patience to try something that elaborate. 10 minutes of rummaging around in my recipe collection brought me to this nice and easy recipe for Keerai Masiyal, also known as Keerai Kadaiyal. The recipe was so simple that I kept checking back to see if I was missing something.

Keerai Masiyal

What I Used (to serve 2):

Amaranth leaves - 2 cups, cleaned and roughly chopped
Dried red chillies - 2
Jeera powder - 1/2 tsp
Mustard seeds - 1/4 tsp
Urad dal - 1/2 tsp
Curry leaves - a few (optional)
Garlic - 2 cloves, minced (optional - traditional Brahmin recipes never use garlic, so omit for the authentic taste)
Oil - 2 tsp
Salt - to taste

How I Made It:

1. Cook the amaranth leaves in 1/2 cup water for about 5-8 mins till its wilted. Be careful not to add too much water, since the leaves give out some while cooking.

2. Heat the oil in a heavy-bottomed pan and temper the mustard seeds. Fry the urad dal and the garlic, if using, until both turn golden brown.

3. Add the red chillies, jeera powder and curry leaves and fry for another 15-20 seconds. Now add the amaranth leaves and mix well.

4. Add salt and keep mashing till the leaves are coarse and blended with the rest of the curry.

Serve hot with rice and mor kozhambu / spiced buttermilk curry.

Notes

- Do not re-heat this curry since the nitrous present in the leaves can be harmful for us, especially kids.

- Try to use fresh spinach but frozen should also work.

- The dish is traditionally prepared in kal chatti (thick unpolished granite pots), where the mashing process is much simpler and gives the dish a nice flavour.

- For a quicker version, instead of mashing up the spinach, grind it coarsely in the mixie before adding to the tempered mixture.

This goes over to Sunshinemom's event 'Food In Colours - Green'

Related Posts

Palak Paneer
Palak Dal
Palak Pakoras

Palak Pakoras/Shredded Spinach & Besan Dumplings

What's better than a hot plate of pakoras and some masala chai on a rainy day? Nothing, I would say. I hardly ever make deep fried snacks or meal but this one particular rainy day, I craved for them so much that I actually went out in the rain, got some fresh spinach (palak), gram flour (besan) and coconut oil to make this lovely and crunchy snack.

What I Used:

Spinach/Palak - 1 cup, chopped

Gram flour/Besan - 1/2 cup and a bit more

Chilli powder - 1 tsp

Asafoetida/Hing - one pinch

Jeera powder - 1 tsp

Oil (I used coconut oil) - enough to deep fry the pakoras

How I Made It:

1. Mix the besan with the chilli powder, hing, jeera powder and sufficient salt.

2. Add the chopped spinach and just enough water to make a thick paste. The consistency should be such that you should be able to make rough round balls with the dough.

3. Heat oil in a pan till hot. Make small dumplings of the batter and drop into the hoil. Adjust the heat so that the oil doesn't boil over too much.

4. Turn the pakoras over when one side is done.

5. Fry till nice and brown and tranfer onto a plate lined with tissues.

6. Serve hot with tomato ketchup/mango pickle and hot masala chai.

Notes:

- Keep adjusting the heat of the oil so that the pakoras don't burn.

- Keep the size of the pakoras small, otherwise the inside won't cook properly.