Kootanchoru Recipe / Kalavai Sadam / Healthy One Pot Meal

Kootanchoru Sadam

This is a popular Tamilnadu recipe, kootanchoru means combining rice, country vegetables, lentils and dried beans together and cooked in one pot. Now days we use pressure cooker to make things easier. You can use any kind of country vegetables, any kind of dried beans you prefer.

Ingredients
Rice - 1 cup
Toor dal - 1/2 cup
Mixed country vegetables chopped - 1 cup( like brinjal, drumstick, broad beans etc)
Dried beans - 1 cup( like mochai kottai, konda kadalai, pattani etc)
Small Onion chopped - 10 nos
Country tomato chopped - 1 no
Tamarind extract
Curry leaves - few
Coriander leaves chopped - 1/4 bunch
Sambar powder - 2 tsp
Red chilli powder - 1 and 1/4 tsp
Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp
Grated coconut - 1/4 cup ( grind to smooth paste) ( optional)
Mustard seeds - 1 tsp
Asafetida - few pinch
Oil - 4 tbsp

Kootanchoru Recipe

Method
1. Soak the dried beans overnight, boil in water adding pinch of cooking soda for 7 minutes or until beans are tender, drain cooked beans and set aside.
2. Wash dal and rice together, pressure cook for 12 mins with 3 cups water until rice and dal are cooked. Once dal and rice is cooked mash it with a ladle.
3. Heat oil in a kadai, add mustard seeds and asafetida, when mustard splutters add chopped onion and curry leaves, sauté until onions are soft.
4. Add the chopped vegetables to the kadai and sauté for a minute.
5. Now add the chopped tomato to the kadai and cook until soft.
6. Now add the tamarind extract, 1/2 cup water, red chilli powder, sambar powder, turmeric powder and required salt to kadai, bring to boil and simmer on low heat for 5 mins until vegetables are cooked.
7. When the vegetables are cooked and some gravy remains in kadai, add the ground coconut paste and mashed dal & rice mixture to the kadai and stir well until everything is combined well.
8. Garnish with coriander leaves and serve hot with Applam.

Kalavai Sadam