Koottukari
A thick Kerala curry of vegetables and pulses with roasted coconut.
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Koottukari, also spelled kootu curry or koottu kari, is a thick curry of vegetables and pulses in a base of roasted coconut from the cuisine of Kerala, southern India. It is one of the standard dishes of the sadhya, the vegetarian feast served during Onam and other Kerala celebrations. Like other South Indian koottu preparations, it is made by cooking vegetables together with pulses.
Preparation
Koottukari is a thick curry from Kerala, made by cooking vegetables like yam, raw plantain, or pumpkin with black chickpeas or Bengal gram in turmeric. The dish gets its nutty flavor from a paste of grated coconut roasted with cumin and dried red chillies until brown, which is stirred into the softened vegetables. A tempering of coconut oil, mustard seeds, and curry leaves finishes it, with some cooks adding jaggery for slight sweetness.
Regional variations depend on how dark the coconut is roasted and the amount of pepper. A lighter, sattvic style, common in temple and Brahmin cooking, omits onion and garlic, while the Kannur version in Malabar uses deeply browned coconut and plenty of black pepper. Koottukari is a standard dish in the sadhya, the vegetarian feast served on a banana leaf during Onam and other Kerala celebrations.
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Sources
Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.
- Wikipedia: Koottukari (CC BY-SA 4.0).
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