Avarakkai poriyal | Broad beans
Quick and easy south indian style avarakkai poriyal with minimal ingredients.
Avarakkai is known as broad beans, field beans or flat beans in english.
Ingredients
- 200 g avarakkai / broad beans
- 2 tbsp oil
- ½ tsp mustard seeds
- ½ tsp split urad dal
- 1 tsp chana dal
- 1 big onion finely chopped
- 2 dried red chillies
- ½ tsp turmeric powder
- Salt to taste
- ¼ cup water
- ¼ cup grated coconut
Instructions
Cleaning and preparation of avarakkai / broad beans
- Wash the broad beans and soak in water for 10 minutes so that any mud particles present on the beans settle down.
- Chop off the head and tail and remove the side strings from the beans. Removing the side strings is important as it doesn't get cooked properly.
- Open the pods and check for the presence of any worms inside.
- Some people do not open the pods but watch it under the sunlight to check for the presence of worms.
- Chop them into fine pieces. Now avarakkai is ready for cooking.
Making avarakkai poriyal | Broad beans
- Heat oil in a pan. You can use any oil including groundnut oil, sesame oil, mustard oil, olive oil, etc.
- Add mustard seeds. Once the mustard seeds crackle, add split urad dal and chana dal.
- One the dals are browned, add chopped onions and dried red chillies.
- Saute the onions till the onions turn translucent.
- Then add chopped avarakkai/broad beans.
- Add turmeric powder and salt to taste.
- Mix everything together and add ¼ cup water.
- Cover and cook in low-medium flame for 10 minutes. Check and stir in between. If not cooked in 10 minutes add a few tablespoons of water and cover and cook again till done. It took 12 minutes for me on medium flame and I didn't add any extra water.
- Check for doneness.
- Add grated coconut.
- Mix everything together and switch off the flame.
- Serve with a lunch menu of your choice!! I served it with steamed white rice, drumstick sambar, rasam and homemade curd.
Notes
- You can avoid adding onions for a no onion no garlic recipe.
- You can add roasted peanut powder instead of grated coconut.
- You can add 1/2 tsp sambar powder along with turmeric powder and salt.
- Though adding grated coconut imparts a great flavour and taste people with diet restrictions can avoid adding it.