I wish all my readers and friends 'HAPPY ONAM'.I hope all my mallu readers and friends would be busy today with the ONAM celebrations.During festivals we do not use certain vegetables such as, onion and garlic which narrows down the options.In general, we make the main course simple and light on the festival day as we would be gorging on extra portion of traditional sweets and savories on that day. Our ideal festival menu would be a rice bath variety,1-2 varieties of palya,sundal,kosambari(salad), plain dal, rasam, payasam,plain rice,traditional sweet like holige,boorelu etc which depends on the festival) and some snacks/savories(like bonda,bajji) varieties.
As we do not use onion during festivals,we make most of the dishes with coconut based masala.Today's recipe is one such example.It is quite simple to make and it takes hardly 15 mins to prepare if we have chopped beans at hand.These kind of stir fries doesn't need any spices and green chillies pound with coconut adds a nice taste to the curry.
Beans Palya | Beans Thoran Recipe:(Serves 3-4)
Ingredients:
250gms French beans,finely chopped
1/3 cup grated fresh Coconut
3-4 Green chillies
2 whole Red chillies
1 tbsp Chana dal
1 tsp Urad dal
1/2 tsp Cumin seeds
1/2 tsp Mustard seeds
8-10 Curry leaves
juice of 1/2 lemon(optional)
a pinch of Asafoetida
salt to taste
2 tsp Oil
Method:- Steam chopped beans with few pinches of salt either in pressure cooker(without whistle) or steamer for 8-10 mins.You can even microwave them on HIGH for 4-5 mins.Strain them and keep aside.
- Heat a spoon of oil in a pan/kadai and crackle mustard seeds and cumin seeds.
- Add asafoetida,chana dal,urad dal,red chillies and curry leaves and fry for a minute.
- Grind grated coconut with green chillies and salt to a coarse masala.It should not become a paste,it should be like just roughly coarse ground masala.
- Add cooked and strained beans and stir fry for 2 mins.
- Now add ground coconut-green chili masala and fry for another minute or two.
- Switch off the flame and add lemon juice and give a stir.
Serve it with rice,dal/rasam/sambar and papad.
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Variations:
Variations:- You can follow the same process for vegetables like carrots,beans-carrot,raw banana,cluster beans,yard long beans,cauliflower etc.
- You can skip the steaming part and can make with the vegetables like ladies finger,cabbage etc.You need to saute them well for 7-8 mins before adding ground coconut masala.
- You can add red chili powder instead of green chillies,it would slightly change in color.
- You can add 1 tbsp kurala podi along with the ground coconut masala to the stir fry,in that case reduce the amount of green chillies to 2 in the recipe.This gives a nice taste to curry.
- If you want you can add finely chopped onion to the pan and saute well and then proceed with adding beans and ground masala.
