VIRUNDHOMBAL

Every day we prepare two varieties of vegetable side dishes for our lunch. Among those two varieties there must be a poriyal dish and the other one is kootu, aviyal or varuval. Varieties of poriyal  dishes are countless with our seasonal vegetables. As I said in my poriyal or thuvaram dishes, we add the ground coconut mixture prepared with coconut, small onions, garlic cloves and red chilly or green chilly. This unique coconut paste is often used in our poriyal or thuvaram dishes. Some prefer to add grated coconut or desiccated coconut powder for poriyal dishes. I actually don't like poriyal dishes made without any flavours. For me, poriyal must have a mix of flavours with perfect textures. We usually precook the vegetables in a vessel (except for keerai poriyal) and then we saute it with the tempering ingredients and finished with our coconut mixture. If you find it difficult to precook the vegetables, you can prepare as you like. But actually pre cooking the

Mint leaves coconut chutney paired with rava dosa is one my favourite combination. In many restaurants I have tasted this chutney and after a few practices I found, how to retain the beautiful pale green colour in it. Because after grinding the chutney with coriander leaves and mint leaves the colour will change to a dull green colour. The secret is just a teaspoon of chana dal and we have to saute the coriander leaves, mint leaves and green chillies just for a minute. Try to use fresh coriander leaves and mint leaves and do not add a bunch of leaves for grinding. Just 10 to 15 mint leaves and a few coriander leaves is enough for a cup of grated coconut. Now let's see how to prepare this chutney.