Cooking web notes

        we eat aapam with sweetened(with jaggery) coconut milk.  But when we had our dinner last month in ‘Mango tree’ restaurant here in SG, for aapam we ordered ‘Vegetable Ishtu’ from their menu. Till then I have not tasted any stew. It was so simple,plain,pure white,with veggies and only the ginger flavour that wafted from the stew. For me it was smelling like the potato masala we make for poori,but with the richness of coconut milk and onion, it was just tasting and smelling divinely!  So I tried at home,with recipe adapted from Divya’s blog slightly,also keeping in mind of what I had in the restaurant. I could not get the pure white they had,but tasted the same!

Ingredients:

Method:

1. First grind the coconut with 1/2 – 3/4 cup water and grind till smooth and extract the thick milk using a strainer.
2. Again add 1 cup warm water to the coconut gratings and grind for a minute and take the thin extract from the coconut.
3. Cut the veggies to thin stripes (I used baby beans) as shown in the picture. Slit the green chillies and onion. Heat pan with oil add ginger,greenchillies ,curry leaves,followed by onion.( I tried adding bay leaf and elachi,but took it off in the middle as it dominated the other flavors. So I omitted in the ingredients)
4. Cook in medium flame,taking care, not to turn the onion colour. It should just be transparent. Boil the veggies with salt and the thin coconut milk along with this fried onion.
5. Let the veggies cook (without turning the veggies mushy),then add the thick coconut milk,just keep in low flame for a minute and put of the stove.

Stew is ready to enjoy with aapam! The onion,ginger and curry leaves along with coconut milk makes the stew smell divinely!

Notes: