Vegetable Stew Recipe - How to make kerala style vegetable stew

One of my friend had been asking me to post the recipe of this vegetable stew for a very long time. Minimal ingredients and the simplicity of the recipe is what wins you over.  The stew is flavored with warm aromatic spices along with giner, fresh coconut milk and finally tempered with coconut oil. It goes well with idiappam or appam or even with plain steamed rice.

 Ingredients

Onion -1
Ginger - 1 inch piece
Garlic - 3 cloves
Green chilli - 2 slit, adjust according to taste
Mixed vegetables - 2 cups ( carrot, beans, potato, cauliflower, peas etc)
Thin coconut milk – 1 1/2 cup
Thick coconut milk – 3/4 cup
Pepper powder - 1/2 tsp
Salt as required

For the seasoning

Bay leaf -1
Cloves -2
Cinnamon - 1 inch piece

Final seasoning

Coconut oil - 1 tsp
Curry leaves - few

Pre-Preparation - How to extract coconut milk

Take coconut gratings of a medium sized fresh coconut in a mixie jar, add 1 cup of water and grind well for couple of minutes. Strain the ground coconut using a strainer. You can even use tea strainer or a colander lined with a soft cotton cloth or cheesecloth. Press it with a ladle or squeeze to extract as much milk as possible. What you got now is the first extract or thick coconut milk or onnam paal. This thick coconut milk cannot be boiled, if boiled it will curdle. 

Now add 1 more cup of water to the already ground coconut and grind it again nicely. Again strain the ground coconut with a strainer. The milk extracted now is the second extract or thin coconut milk or rendam paal which is thinner than the first. This can be boiled and generally can be used for cooking vegetables or payasams.


Chop all the vegetable into medium sized pieces or cubes. Finely chop onion, garlic and ginger.

Method

Heat oil, add the ingredients mentioned under seasoning, saute for a few seconds, then add onions and garlic. Saute till onions turn transparent.

Then add ginger, green chilli and the rest of the vegetables.

Add thin coconut milk, required salt and pepper powder. Cook till the vegetables are soft.

Once the vegetables are cooked, add thick coconut milk and heat it a little. Its very important not to boil the stew after adding the thick coconut milk. The consistency of the stew should be thin.

Finally, heat a tsp of coconut oil, saute curry leaves in it for a second and add to the stew. Serve Kerala style vegetable stew with aappams or steamed rice.