Palak Kuttu

Palak Kuttu also Keerai Mulagootal and Keerai Kootu is home-cooked everyday Indian curry with dal, yes lentils and spinach, healthy and flavourful.

However, let us start at the very beginning...

The roots of the word Curry is a Tamil.

Curries made from vegetables, lentils/ dals are vegetarian curries and curries made from fish, meat, poultry, or shellfish, either alone or in combination with vegetables are non-vegetarian curries. Again, you can have dry curry, where the cooking liquid is allowed to evaporate. In a wet curry, the gravy has some of the cooking liquid.

Gravy or curry can be different, as the base can be onion, onion tomato, coconut, cream, curds, or even dal.

Palak Kuttu,Keerai Mulagootal,Keerai Kootu

The present popular avatar of Curry available in restaurants as a creamy, red/white/yellow/green in colour gravy with oil running on the top is popularised in the West by British colonialists from India for spiced dishes, from India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Thai, and other South Asian and Southeast Asian cuisines.

Cooking at home takes into account many factors from the season, availability of local produce, the nutritive requirements and the family tastes into consideration. Food every day is varied, one cannot eat the same food day in and out with the use of different ingredients, herbs and spices.

In South Indian home popular curries are sambhar a lentil based thick stew with veggies in a tangy tamarind base and rasam which is more watery. The third kind is Kootu to which even I am new.

The three sambhar, rasam and kootu can be made in different ways and you will have different flavours. The addition of simple ingredient like say, a tomato can change the flavour of the curry.

This Kootu recipe I have copied from Rajani, according to her a “Kootu is usually a mix of one or more vegetables cooked with lentils and then rounded off with ground spicy coconut paste.” In the Kootu coconut not only helps thicken the gravy but also gives it an amazing flavour. As I said, what goes in the coconut paste varies from recipe to recipe household to household. Not a fan of coconut? No problems skip it!

Thanks to these combinations, we can have varied kinds of gravies that we can have with roti/rice.

The other dal variety you may be interested in are

Recipe copied from Rajani .

Palak Kuttu

Palak Kuttu/Keerai Mulagootal/Keerai Kootu

Serves: 4 people
Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time:20 minutes

Ingredients:

To sauté and grind:

1 teaspoon oil
2 tablespoon urad dal
3-4 dry red chillies
1 teaspoon jeera/cumin seeds
¼ cup coconut
Water as needed

For the kootu:

4 cups spinach, chopped
½ cup moong or toor dal, cooked separately
¼ teaspoon turmeric powder
Salt to taste
1 teaspoon oil
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
1 dry red chillies

Method:

For Sauté and grinding:

Heat oil in a kadhai/wok add urad dal, red chillies.
Let the dal turns brown, add jeera, and turn off the heat.
Cool and grind with the coconut to a smooth paste adding a little water. Set aside.

To make the kootu:

Cook moong dal or toor dal with ¼ teaspoon haldi/turmeric powder.
Heat in a kadhai/wok, add one teaspoon mustard seeds and red chillies to it.
Once the mustard splutters, add cleaned and chopped spinach. Add a little water and let it cook.
Add cooked dal to the spinach mix well.
Add the ground paste and water as needed.
Mix everything in, adding salt to taste.
Add water as needed to bring it the consistency you prefer.
Serve with rice and pickle. In my place, we ate it with roti.

Keerai Mulagootal

Palak Kuttu/Keerai Mulagootal/Keerai Kootu

Palak Kuttu also Keerai Mulagootal and Keerai Kootu is home cooked everyday Indian curry with dal, yes lentils and spinach, healthy and flavourful.

5 from 1 vote

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Course: Side Dish, Stew

Cuisine: Indian

Keyword: Easy Dinner Recipes, Green Leafy Vegetables with Dal, Healthy Food, Quick Meal, Simple and healthy diet in old age, Spinach Recipes

Prep Time: 10

Cook Time: 20

Total Time: 30

Servings: people

Calories:

Author: ArchanaPotdar

Ingredients

To sauté and grind:

1 teaspoon Oil
2 tablespoon urad dal
3-4 dry red chillies
1 teaspoon Jeera/cumin seeds
¼ cup Coconut
Water as needed

For the kootu:

4 cups Spinach chopped
½ cup moong or toor dal cooked separately
¼ teaspoon turmeric powder
Salt to Taste
1 teaspoon Oil
1 teaspoon Mustard seeds
1 dry red chillies

Instructions

For Sauté and Grinding:

Heat oil in a kadhai/wok add urad dal, red chillies.
Let the dal turns brown, add jeera, and turn off the heat.
Cool and grind with the coconut to a smooth paste adding a little water. Set aside.

To make the kootu:

Cook moong dal or toor dal with ¼ teaspoon haldi/turmeric powder.
Heat in a kadhai/wok, add one teaspoon mustard seeds and red chillies to it.
Once the mustard splutters, add cleaned and chopped spinach. Add a little water and let it cook.
Add cooked dal to the spinach mix well.
Add the ground paste and water as needed.
Mix everything in, adding salt to taste.
Add water as needed to bring it the consistency you prefer.
Serve with rice and pickle. In my place we ate it with roti.

Palak Kuttu/Keerai Mulagootal/Keerai Kootu

Palak Kuttu also Keerai Mulagootal and Keerai Kootu is home-cooked everyday Indian curry with dal, yes lentils and spinach, healthy and flavourful.

Palak Kuttu/Keerai Mulagootal/Keerai Kootu