Cabbage Coconut Curry/ Cabbage Kootu

I vaguely remember eating this daal curry at a friend’s place years ago. Her mom had made this for lunch, and she had served it very lovingly. This recipe was new to me then and I recall having taken generous serving of this yummy curry.

In Konkani cuisine we have quite a few varieties of daal curries, but they use red chillies for making the coconut masala while this uses green. I had made a mental note of the recipe and now I make it often though substituting cabbage with vegetable I have on hand. 

This recipe well suits our hectic evening schedules. Trying to get the kiddos homework done, or driving him around for his activity we have a busy schedule right until the kiddo finishes dinner and hits the bed. I love the fact that this fits the bill of being both healthy and delicious. . This can be prepared in about 20 minutes provided the daal and vegetables are already cooked. 

This is a good way to add vegetables for people/ kids who do not like it. The guys in the house are not too fond of cabbage in the form of dry curry and so I look for ways of sneaking in this vegetable. Cabbage chutney is another novel idea as it camouflages its taste and texture.

 

Ingredients:

• 1.5 cups chopped cabbage
• ½ cup Toor Daal/moong daal
• 2 red chillies (broken)
• 5-6 curry leaves
• Oil
• 1 tsp mustard seeds

 

To grind 

• ½ cup shredded coconut (fresh/frozen)
• Salt to taste
• 2-3 green chillies
• 2 pinches turmeric
• 2 tsp Cumin seeds

Method:

• Pressure cook the cabbage and toor daal in sufficient amount of water. Keep aside to cool.
• Meanwhile grind the coconut, salt, green chillies, turmeric, cumin seeds (raw) along with water to a fine paste.
• Take heavy bottom pan/kadhai heat oil and then splutter the mustard seeds, add cumin seeds. Next add curry leaves and broken red chilies.
• Mix in the coconut paste and stir until the raw taste of coconut is gone.
• Add the cooked daal and cabbage, salt, stirring occasionally.
•  Boil for a while and then cover with lid and simmer.
• Finally garnish with chopped coriander leaves.