Avial is a mixture of different vegetables cooked together with coconut and tamarind or curd. It’s an essential part of Keralite feast called Sadya. It is supposed to be invented by Bhima(one of the pandava’s brother) during the unexpected arrival of King Virata, when there was not enough vegetables to cook any particular recipe. So he combined different vegetables and made Avial.
Avial recipe
Course: SidesCuisine: Indian, KeralaDifficulty: Medium6
servings25
minutes35
minutesAvial is a very popular dish from Kerala in which variety of vegetables are cooked in coconut gravy.
Ingredients
100 gms of elephant yam/suran/chena, vertically thinly sliced into 2 inch pieces
1 plantain, vertically thinly sliced into 2 inch pieces
3 drumstick, peeled and cut into 3 inch pieces
1 medium carrot, cut thinly sliced into 2 inch pieces
15-20 green beans or gawar phali or long beans, cut into 2 inch pieces
1/2 of medium bottle guard or ash guard, peeled and sliced thinly into 2 inch pieces
3 green chilies, slit vertically
1/2 of one medium coconut, grated(about 1 and 1/4 cup of grated coconut)
2 sprigs of curry leaves
1 tsp of cumin seeds
1/2 of medium onion
1/2 of turmeric powder
Salt to taste
2 tsp of coconut oil
Directions
- Put all the vegetables except onion in a pan with salt, chilies, curry leaves, turmeric powder and water up to 3/4 of veggies. Put on the lid and let it cook over medium heat, stirring it occasionally.
- Meanwhile grind coconut with cumin seeds and onion to a coarse paste. Let the vegetables cook until it is 90 percent done.
- Soak tamarind in a 1/4 cup of warm water for 20 minutes. Then squeeze out the water from the tamarind and keep it aside.
- Add the ground coconut and tamarind water to the veggies and let it cook until all the veggies are done.
- Switch off the heat and drizzle oil over the veggies. Serve warm avial with rice.
