Olan

This post is part of Onam and Sadya. The recipe below will be enough to serve 6 - 8 people for Sadya. Measurements are only approximate.

Olan is a stew dish, usually prepared by cooking ash gourd, pumpkin and red beans in water with salt and finished off with coconut milk and fresh coconut oil. It has a very refreshing taste that is very unique and
pleasing. The beauty of the dish is its simplicity in preparation, that you keep asking for more. The recipe here is again Thriuvananthapuram style and there are variations you would come across in different parts of Kerala. And I had to substitute chokos for ash gourd as the preferred vegetable was not available.


Ingredients

• 1 1/4 cups chokos, diced
• 1 cup kent pumpkin, diced
• 3/4 cup adzuki beans
• 2 green chilly, slit
• 2 sprigs curry leaves
• 1 small clove garlic, crushed
• 1/4 tsp cumin powder
• 2/3 cup coconut milk
•  1 tsp coconut oil
• salt to taste

Method
1. Soak adzuki beans overnight and cook in a pressure cooker with salt and water until soft but not mushy. Drain excess water and keep aside.
2. In a saucepan, add chokos, chilly, curry leaves, garlic and salt and cook with just enough to water to cook chokos. When it is half done, add pumpkin and more water and salt if required and mix well. Continue cooking until chokos and pumpkin are cooked through. Then add cooked adzuki beans and mix well. Now add coconut milk and cumin powder, stir through and as soon as the milk starts boiling remove from fire. (Do not let coconut milk boil. It should only just start to boil.) Pour fresh coconut oil and stir through.

Serve Olan hot with rice.

Note:- Did you notice any pumpkin in my photograph? The small, thin, orange strands you see are overcooked pumpkin. In my hurry to complete sadya preparation as fast as possible, I put chokos and pumpkin together to cook. So by the time the chokos were cooked enough, all my pumpkins were mashed through. :(