Keerai Molakootal

     Molakootal is an authentic healthy recipe from Kerala. There can be many variants tried with the base idea of this recipe. This extremely easy to make gravy finds its way into our kitchen atleast once in every week.  Any tangy thogayal or pickle serves as a best accompaniment for this dish. 
     Whenever this dish is made, we also make a rasam for the next course :P (after having this molakootal with rice). As molakootal is a bit thicker in consistency, our taste buds long for an immediate course with something little spicy & in more of a liquid form. For rasam, we have molakootal as the side-dish. With this two course meal itself, one would feel tummy full.. 

Prep Time: 10 mins || Cook Time: 35 mins || Serves: 4 ||  Category: Sambar/Gravy   

Ingredients:
1. Spinach - 250 gms
2. Turmeric Powder - 2 tsp
3. Cumin Seeds - 3tsp
4. Dry red chillies - 3 or 4
5. Grated coconut - 3 tbsp 
6. Boiled toor dal - 1 cup
7. Salt - as required
8. Oil - 1 tbsp
9. Mustard seeds - 2tsp
10. Asafoetida - a pinch

Method:
1. Wash and dry the spinach leaves & chop them finely. In a pan, heat about 2 cups of water and add turmeric powder to it.

2. When the water boils, add the chopped spinach.

3. Grind red chillies, cumin seeds & grated coconut with little water, to a paste.

4. Mash the boiled toor dal. cook spinach for about 5 mins until it reduces in volume.

5. At this point, add the ground paste, mix well and cook in medium flame for about 3-4 mins.

6. Lastly add the mashed toor dal, hing & salt and mix well. Switch off the flame after 2 mins. Temper with mustard.

Suggestions:

• Number of red chillies can be adjusted as required.
• Tastes too good with arikeerai/mulaikeerai or any suitable green in the place of spinach. (I tried with spinach as other variety of greens are not available here).
• This can also be done with either Banana Stem (Vaazhaithandu) or with a mix of country vegetables (yam, broad bean - avaraikkai, raw banana, brinjal, chayote-chow chow) or english vegetables (carrot/beans/potato).
• 2 tsp of urad dal can be included when grinding coconut, cumin seeds, red chillies. This would give a thicker consistency and better binding to the gravy.

This mild lentil + green gravy will go well with rice/rotis.
Serve keerai molakootal for rice with any tangy thogayal or with any spicy pickle.