Brinjal Mezhukkupuratti

Many don’t like Brinjal due to its gooey texture after cooking. But at home, since my mom was very strict on us eating all kind of vegetables she could lay her hands on, we never got time to complain about texture. I was told by someone Brinjal didn’t have any nutrients and even plucked out some Brinjal plants. I was wrong. It has a stash of nutrients and those violet colors are good for you.

Mezhukkupuratti is malayalam for stir fry.

I cut brinjal in small rounds one inch thick. Dont cut them too thin, for they will squish too soon. You can cut them in one inch thick elongated pieces too.

For 3 cups of brinjal, dice ½ cup shallots, 1 pod of garlic, 4 green chilies.

Heat 2 tbsp of coconut oil in a skillet, splutter 1 tsp of mustard seeds, add two split red chilies, 1 sprig of curry leaves. Then add the garlic, green chilies and onion in that order.

Now add the cut brinjal and some salt and sauté them well in the oil and lower the heat to a minimum. Sweat the vegetables by covering it and then stir them occasionally.

When they are soft, take them off from heat.

Serve as an accompaniment to rice.

Raw Banana Stir Fry (Kaaya Upperi)

Raw banana with smashed shallots and chili, sautéed in some coconut oil… Love to have that with some curd and rice.

Buy raw bananas, any type. Usually in India, we get bananas that are used only for cooking. We call it ‘ponthan kaaya’, they are short and stout and is not good to eat when ripe. That is they are less sweet. So we cook them.

Anyway you can use the same for any raw banana.

Scrape the skin of lightly. Do not take the whole skin. Dip them in turmeric water (a little turmeric powder added to water) to avoid discoloration and to get rid of the sap while cutting.

Cook 3 cups of bananas diced into half inch squares in 2 cups of water with enough salt and ¼ tsp turmeric powder.

Heat 1 tbsp of coconut oil, sauté crushed shallots and a sprig of curry leaves, 4 green chilies, and add the cooked bananas. Sauté them well and smash it lightly. Instead of green chilies, you can add crushed whole pepper.

I have seen some add a tinge of asafoetida. I don’t, so you needn’t :-)

I would say coconut oil is a must for upperi/mezhukkupuratti (stir fry in English) like this, since the coconut oil gives the dish a very unique flavor and taste.

Serve with rice or roti.

Kovakka mezhukkupuratti (Ivy gourd Stir Fry)

Mezhukkupuratti (or Upperi) and Thoran have one basic difference. Thoran has shredded coconut and has a raw taste since cooked in lesser oil while mezhukkupuratti has a slight oily stir fry taste.

I like this better than plain kovakka thoran or the thoran with shrimps I had blogged earlier. With the coconut oil coating, kovakka gets a new taste.

Wash the kovakka (Ivy gourd) thoroughly in running water, cut off both the tips. Cut into thin lengthy strips. Make sure the pieces are very thin so you don’t need to pre cook them before making mezhukupuratti.

For 3 cups,

Small onion – 1 cup thinly diced
One sprig of curry leaves
5 green chilies

Heat 2 tablespoon of coconut oil, for mezhukkupuratti we usually use a little bit more oil.

Splutter one tsp mustard seeds in low heat, add one dry red chili split, add curry leaves, then add shallots and diced green chilies and sauté well. Add kovakka pieces and mix well with 1.2 tsp turmeric powder and enough salt. Stir until the vegetable gets a nice coating and then in cook covered in low heat stirring occasionally.

Serve with rice or roti.

Koorkka Upperi

This is the simple stir fry version of koorkka loved by all.

Skin Scraped Koorka, washed and cleaned thoroughly, boiled with little salt and ¼ tsp turmeric powder – 3 cups
Shallots or small onions – 1 cup diced thick and crushed
Crushed red chili flakes – 2 table spoon
Curry leaves – 2 sprigs.

Heat 2 tablespoons of oil; add shallots, chili flakes, curry leaves and sauté them until light brown. Add the boiled koorkka and in low flame sauté for 5 minutes.

Serve as snack, with rice or with roti. Mostly everyone likes this in this form. Simple preparation but it brings out the real taste of koorkka.

Wait, Wait! Read about koorkka before you leave with a mouthful.

I was searching for koorkka on Google and was surprised to find not many details on this delicious food. I somehow had a hunch that the name Chinese potato is just a quickly thought out name by some Mallu moyalaali (owner) who is exporting all this cleaned and washed koorkka to his koorkka crazy malayalalee counterparts in Gulf and U.S. Everybody loves this but what is the purpose if Google doesn’t have it? I asked my South American friends, my Chinese friends all to get the original name of this and none other than a fellow malayalee blogger friend helped me in finding koorkka. He, who blogs as Devaragam really took pains and wrote to me,

(verbatim)

Inji,

Alright I went to central tuber crop research institute and found this research paper. From there to bihrmann and from there to wiki.

This stuff has a thousand names. Koorka in central to North Kerala, Tamilnadu & Srilanka, cheevakizhangu @ TVM/kollam, Hausa Potato, Chinese Potato, Country Potato, Fra-Fra-Salanga, Pesa, Fabirama ratala, Hausa potato, frafra potato, Sudan potato, coleus potato, Zulu potato, and Zulu round potato, hausakartoffel, innala etc. in various other parts of world in different languages.

That’s why we go for binomial nomenclature. It rarely happens, but unfortunately it has two scientific names too! Plectranthus rotundifolius & Germanea rotundifolia :)

It is believed to be native of Mauritius. Nobody is sure. its highly popular in Sudan & south India (may be we took it with us when we migrated from Africa 1.75 lakh years ago :)

Pictures are here. She belongs to the mint family Lamiaceae (same as panikkoorka and pudina)

In India we call it Chinese potato in English. Strangely, they don’t grow this in China :)

(end)

This post is for dear friend Devaragam. Thank you so much! On Behalf of me, the Koorkka fans association of North America, All Kerala Koorkka Society of India, and www.koorkkaWorld.com :)