Olan

I have been really busy this whole week, and have been eating only rice and pickle. So, couldn’t post which I wanted to very badly.

Now, when a friend gave me the recipe of Olan (a must dish in Onam Sadya), I thought she was kidding. How can an exquisite dish have a recipe so simple? I had never tasted Olan before and have never even seen it during my childhood years. Only later when I moved out of home, I got introduced to this wonderful dish.

It is a simple recipe yet so royal, which reminds me of the traditional Kerala Kasavu Sarees. Plain cream colored sarees with a small zari border, they look so simple yet when you wear it, it looks royal. Somehow Olan reminds of this.

You can make Olan using Ash gourd, young green Pumpkin.

I am not sure one can make it using young green Papaya. Anyway I tried it and it tastes the same as you cook it with Ashgourd. I normally make it with Ashgroud, but this time I made it with young papaya.

Papaya needs to be peeled, the seeds removed and cleaned, then cut into small pieces.
Papaya – 4 cups.
Red moong beans – 1 cup (pressure cooked, should not lose its shape)

Now, cook papaya with 6 green chilies split, 1 sprig of curry leaves, and ½ tsp of cumin powder in 2 cups of water. Simmer and let the water evaporate completely.

When done and the papaya turns soft, add 2 cups of fresh coconut milk and the cooked red moong beans. Cook for another 5 or 6 minutes with open lid. Olan shoud not be watery.

Take from stove and add 2 tsp of coconut oil and mix. (Yes, if you ask me coconut oil is a must.) That’s it.
Serve with rice. The Royal Olan is ready!

Now, for some updates. We all know about Yahoo India stealing contents from individual blogs. Concerned parties send an email to Yahoo (U.S) office and those emails were forwarded to Yahoo India. No reply yet! But the funny thing is those contents were removed from the site silently. That means they are sure they committed the violation.

However, I do think they ought to put an apology on Yahoo site. A silent removal is not accepted. Since, the main thing is we all cannot always go behind each and every person and it is a big headache. This time, Yahoo has done it and if they put an apology it will be a lesson to future violators.

What you can do? Please do send emails from your company address, especially if you have a good company name like Microsoft, Intel, Google etc. For this matter to be taken urgently and to get noticed since your company email id gives the complaints validity.

Please do send emails to Mary Osako (mosako@yahoo-inc.com), Linda Du (lindadu@yahoo-inc.com). You can get more email address from here


Thank you again all for the support.