Avial recipe – Mixed vegetables stew with coconut and yogurt
Did I tell you about my lately addiction to coconut? Coconut oil, coconut milk or cream, coconut water, fresh coconut, body coconut cream, anything with coconut will do for me!
In my country, coconut is popular in baked goods (mostly using dried coconut for cake toppings), but also consumed as a fresh exotic fruit. I honestly don’t know any Romanian recipe with coconut else than desserts.
As I have lots of fresh vegetables in my fridge, I was searching/googling for a mixed vegetables dish with coconut, to make it more tasty, and I came across this amazing Avial recipe, that inspired me and made me cook it right away. And I don’t regret it, as the result was very tasty. Thank you, Soma. You have a wonderful collection of Indian recipes and a visually stunning blog.
Avial is a south Indian mixed vegetables stew with coconut, a souring agent, curry leaves and coconut oil. As I understood, Avial should be dry type of vegetables curry but I wanted a bit of gravy with it, to go better with rice. So I added some water while cooking the vegetables. For the tangy taste I used yogurt instead of tamarind or raw mangoes.
This dish is very easy to make, tasty and goes divinely with rice. More, it’s a great way to get rid of any leftover vegetables in the fridge.
It’s also the kind of dish that’s very adaptable to your personal taste, if you don’t like a certain vegetable, you can leave it out, and add more of something else.
Step by step Avial recipe
Take a deep pan, add 3 cups of water (or less, if you want a thick gravy), sliced vegetables, salt, half of curry leaves and cumin seeds. Allow to cook for 10-15 minutes, on medium flame.
Note: Fresh curry leaves are not easily available in Western markets, you can find them at your local Indian market or you can buy online on amazon
Add turmeric powder, grated coconut and chillies. Cook for 5-8 minutes.
Reduce the flame to low-medium and add yogurt. Simmer for 5 minutes.
Finish by adding rest of the curry leaves and coconut oil. Mix well and serve hot with rice.
- 4 cups mixed sliced vegetables; ( I used carrot, pumpkin, plantains, yam, beans, drumstick and peas)
- 1 cup grated coconut;
- ½ tsp turmeric powder;
- 1 tsp cumin seeds;
- 1 dried red chilli;
- 1 green chilli, chopped;
- ½ cup yogurt;
- 2 sprigs curry leaves;
- ¼ tsp salt (more or less, as per taste);
- 2 tbsp coconut oil;
- 3 cups of water.
- Take a deep pan, add 3 cups of water (or less, for a thick gravy), sliced vegetables, salt, half of curry leaves and cumin seeds. Allow to cook for 10-15 minutes, on medium flame.
- Add turmeric powder, grated coconut and chillies. Cook for 5-8 minutes.
- Reduce the flame to low-medium and add yogurt. Simmer for 5 minutes.
- Finish by adding rest of the curry leaves and coconut oil. Mix well and serve hot with rice.
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