Maathanga and Van Payar Erissery

Happy Onam Wishes To All My Readers

When searching for a regional recipe for the alphabet M as part of the Blogging Marathon #32, I saw this recipe at Kothiyavunu. Mathanga means yellow pumpkin and van payar is the cow peas also known as karamani in Tamil. Erissery is a coconut based gravy from Kerala. There are so many varieties of erissery. It uses vegetables like yam, raw banana and pumpkin. It is part of the sadya menu prepared during Onam. Fortunately my post on this dish coincided with the festival and I am very happy I made it. It was very delicious with rice. The flavour of the dish comes from the tempering and the garnish. Coconut is roasted until brown and is used as a garnish for this dish. When prepared thick it can be used as a side dish too. There is lots and lots of coconut in this recipe which I followed from Kothiyavunu. Hope you all like it as much as I did. 




Ingredients:
For The Paste:
Coconut Grated-1 cup
Cumin Seeds-1 tsp
Green Chillies-2-3

For The Tempering:
Oil-2 tbs (preferably coconut oil)
Maustard Seeds-1 tsp
Curry Leaves-2 sprigs
Red Chilly-2

For The Gravy:
Karamani/ Cow Peas-3/4 cup
Diced Yellow Pumpkin-2 cups
Turmeric Powder-1/4 tsp
Salt-to taste

For Garnish:
Coconut Grated-5  tbs

Procedure:
1. Soak the cow peas overnight.
2. Pressure cook for 3 minutes on the day of preparation.
3. Mix turmeric powder, salt and cubed pumpkin to the cooked peas.
4. Heat it and let it boil on medium flame.
5. When the pumpkins are slightly soft, grind the spice paste ingredients to a coarse paste and add it. 
6. Keep on cooking until the pumpkin is mushy.
7. Now remove from heat and transfer to a serving dish.
8. Heat oil and add mustard, curry leaves and red chilly.
9. When they crackle add it to the erissery.
10. Toast the grated coconut until nicely browned.
11. Garnish the erissery with this toasted coconut.
12. Serve hot along with rice.




Very flavourful Erissery!!!





Logo courtesy : Preeti

Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM# 32

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