முளைக்கீரை பூண்டு கடையல் / Mulaikeerai kadaiyal / Keerai Recipes / Keerai Kadaiyal in Tamil / Keerai

https://justcookkitchen.com/en/recipe... Facebook:   / justcookkitchens   ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ INGREDIENTS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ • Mulaikeerai (amaranth leaves), cleaned and washed — 3 cups packed • Garlic cloves, peeled — 8 to 10 cloves • Small onion (shallot), roughly chopped — 1 medium • Green chilli, slit — 1 • Water — 3 tablespoons • Salt — to taste • Sesame oil (gingelly oil) — 2 teaspoons • Mustard seeds — 1/2 teaspoon • Urad dal (split black gram) — 1/2 teaspoon • Dried red chillies — 2 • Asafoetida (hing / perungayam) — a small pinch • Curry leaves — 1 sprig ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ METHOD ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 1. Thoroughly wash the mulaikeerai leaves two to three times in fresh water to remove any dirt or grit. Drain well and set aside. Peel the garlic cloves and keep them whole. Roughly chop the shallot and slit the green chilli. 2. Heat a heavy-bottomed pan or kadai over medium flame. Add the cleaned mulaikeerai leaves, garlic cloves, chopped shallot, slit green chilli, salt to taste, and 3 tablespoons of water. Stir everything together. 3. Cover the pan with a lid and cook on medium-low heat for about 8 to 10 minutes, stirring once or twice in between. The greens will wilt down completely and the garlic will become soft and tender. The mixture should look thoroughly cooked and the water mostly absorbed. 4. Turn off the flame and allow the cooked greens mixture to cool slightly for 3 to 4 minutes. This makes it easier and safer to mash without splattering. 5. Using a traditional wooden masher (matthu) or the back of a heavy ladle, mash the cooked greens and garlic together directly in the pan to a coarse or semi-smooth consistency depending on your preference. Do not use a blender as the rustic texture is what makes kadaiyal authentic and delicious. 6. Taste the mashed greens and adjust salt if needed. Keep the kadaiyal aside while you prepare the tempering. 7. In a small tempering pan, heat 2 teaspoons of sesame oil over medium flame. Once the oil is hot, add mustard seeds and allow them to splutter completely. 8. Add urad dal to the pan and fry until it turns light golden. Then add the dried red chillies broken in half, curry leaves, and a small pinch of asafoetida. Fry for 20 to 30 seconds until fragrant, being careful not to burn the spices. 9. Pour this sizzling tempering immediately over the mashed mulaikeerai kadaiyal and mix gently to combine all the flavours together. Serve hot with steamed rice and a drizzle of ghee or alongside rasam and papadams for a wholesome traditional Tamil meal. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ TIPS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ✔ Always use fresh and young mulaikeerai leaves for the best flavour and colour. Older leaves with thick stems can taste slightly bitter, so trim the stems and use only the tender leaves and thin stalks. ✔ Do not add too much water while cooking the greens. Mulaikeerai releases its own moisture as it wilts, and using excess water will make the kadaiyal watery and difficult to mash to the right consistency. ✔ For an even more flavourful kadaiyal, lightly dry roast the garlic cloves in the pan for 1 to 2 minutes before adding the greens. This brings out a deeper, nuttier garlic flavour that takes the dish to the next level.