Peerkangai Poricha Kootu

Poricha Kootu is as traditional Tamil Brahmin as you can get. You can make this out of any vegetable suitable for making kootu. I decided to try it with ridge gourd and it turned out to be pretty good. Poricha Kootu is usually eaten with paruppu saadam (translates into daal mixed with rice with a bit of ghee) and side dish of brinjal fried curry, but you can directly mix it with rice and eat it as well. It tastes really great with thayir saadam (curd rice).

Ingredients –

For the kootu

Ridge Gourd – 2 (medium sized)

Moong Daal – ½ cup

Sambar powder – 1 tbsp

Curry leaves – a few

Hing a pinch

Salt to taste

To be ground into a paste

Coconut (grated) – ¼ cup

Coriander Seeds – 1 tbsp

Red Chillies - 2

Urad Daal – 1.5 tbsp

Pepper – 4 to 5

Jeera – 1 tsp

Oil for frying – 1 tsp

For the tempering

Coconut oil – 1 tbsp

You can use sunflower oil if you like that better. But I feel coconut oil gives the kootu that distinct flavour.

Mustard seeds – 1 tsp

Urad daal – 1 tsp

Curry leaves – a few

Hing - a pinch

Method

• Cut the ridge gourd into small pieces and wash it thoroughly. Take the daal and wash that as well.
• Pressure cook the vegetable, daal, sambar powder, hing curry leaves and salt along with some water for up to 3 whistles or however long it takes for the daal to cook.
• Fry the ingredients for the masala in a little bit of oil. Do not fry the coconut too much. Once the ingredients have cooled down, add water and grind into a fine paste.
• Now add this ground mixture to the cooked vegetable and bring the mixture to a boil.
• Heat the coconut oil in a kadai for the tempering. Add some hing. Add the mustard seeds and let them splutter. Then add the urad daal and fry till golden brown. Last but not the least the curry leaves need to go into the tempering.
•  Add the tempering to the prepared kootu.

Tips -

Since the water content in ridge gourd is high, the kootu tends to become runny sometimes, so you can add some rice flour while grinding the masala, to give the kootu a thicker base.

To make it suitable for the palates of small children like my toddler who is a year old, I cut down on the amount of sambar powder and red chillies I use. I tend to use more of the pepper karam (spice).