This is such a versatile healthy side dish that can be served with Rice ,Roti or even with Dosai too ☺ The basic ‘koottu’ (கூட்டு) recipe contains 3 important components
1. Veggies – Pumpkin, Carrot,Eggplant,Drumstick, Snakegourd,Spinach,Chow Chow,Cabbage are the most commonly used vegetables.
2. Daal (lentils) – A cup of pressure cooked daal. It could be either a mix of moongdal and channa dal or just moongdal or toordal
3. Coconut Paste – This paste is essential. All you need is fresh coconut, green chilli & jeera. However if you want you can add peppercorns, ginger & garlic too
Once you have all this 3 components ready then you can put together kootu in ten minutes. In the below recipe I have used a variety of cucumber to prepare this koottu
| Prep Time | 10 minutes |
| Cook Time | 15 minutes |
| Servings |
people
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- 2 cups Cucumbers Chopped
- 1/4 cup Channa Dal
- 1/2 cup coconut Shredded
- 1 green chilli
- 1 tbsp jeera
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp turmeric
- 1/2 tbsp coconut oil
- 1/2 tsp Mustard Seeds
- 1/2 tsp Urad dal seeds
- 1/2 tsp jeera
- 1 chilli dried
- curry leaves Few
Ingredients
For Tadka
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- Grind 1/4 cup coconut, 1 green chilli & 1 tbsp jeera to a smooth paste
- Pressure cook Moongdal & Channa Dal together with a pinch of turmeric for upto 4 whistles
- Add 2 cups of water in a thick bottomed vessel and add chopped cucumber pieces. Add a pinch of salt and let the vegetable get cooked for 10-12 minutes. Since Cucumber dont take much time to cook I am using this method. However if you are using any other vegetable like chowchow,carrots,squash you can directly pressure cook them along with moongdal or toordal.
- Once the cucumber is cooked , add pressure cooked dal, coconut jeera paste, Stir them together and let it boil for 5 minutes in low flame
- Adjust salt and at last prepare Tadka
- Heat coconut oil in tadka pan, add mustard seeds, jeera,red chillies,urad dal & curryleaves one by one
- Let them splutter. Add this tadka on koottu
- Cucumber Koottu is now ready to be served with Rice/Roti
- Similar recipe was followed for this chowchow carrot koottu
- This one is courgette koottu 🙂 You can change veggies & follow the recipe according to your preference..
