Kaalan

Kaalan is a traditional Keralite dish. It is prepared at weddings and other celebrations. No Onam meal is complete without the regular serving of Kaalan. However, all through my childhood and teens, I hated it. Kaalan is made in a gravy of coconut milk and sour buttermilk. Coconut milk, that I can take but buttermilk – only Mummy could make me drink it and that too, she gave up as I grew older. Geetu and I shared this peculiar distaste for yogurt, curd, buttermilk and all such milk-related items. So Kaalan rarely found its way to my plate or banana leaf and if it did, I’d quietly shove it into the dustbin after that perfunctory first taste.

But now here I am, in the US of A. Missing the familiar scents, sounds and sights of home. Where the slightest whiff of a jasmine flower brings back memories of Kerala and the sound of Malayalam renders me homesick, it is of little wonder that I decided to try my hand at cooking Kaalan. At home, it is quite an elaborate preparation but I decided to make a simple version. So, there I went and got a lauki or doodhi or ridge gourd. Cut it into small pieces and cooked in the pressure cooker for a couple of whistles. In parallel, I blended some grated coconut and green chillies. I then added yogurt into this coconut-chilli mixture. The original recipe demands the sourest yogurt you can find. Thank God for Stonyfield organic yogurt with all the goodness and none of the sourness. Well, the reason I couldn’t stand yogurt/buttermilk in India was precisely that – the exceedingly sour taste. Any how, once the ridge gourd is cooked, put into a pan and add the coconut-chilli-yogurt mixture into it. Now, lower the flame and bring the Kaalan to a gentle boil.

Make a tadka of mustard, turmeric, curry leaves, fenugreek seeds and dried red chillies.

Once the mustard splutters and the fenugreek seeds turn red, pour it on to the Kaalan.

Boil for a short while and then turn it off. Kaalan is ready!

x-posted to desifood