Araikeerai-Masiyal

#AraikeeraiMasiyal ( #AraikeeraiMashed ), the most simple & tastiest recipe using green leafy vegetable. It is one of  the best ways to get all the goodness of green leafy vegetable since it is not being cooked over fire for a long time thereby destroying its vital nutrients.

Keerai Masiyal is a Tamil word and it means mashed greens. 

All are not suitable for making keerai masiyal. The taste of keerai masiyal will be very good only when its been done with some greens like mulai keerai, palak, tender thandu keerai, red mulai keerai and arai keerai. 

 The green leafy vegetable is washed in water two or three times to remove all the impurities . It is then cooked in a vessel or pressure cooker with little water. I usually pressure cook greens on high flame for one whistle and then take out cooked greens after immediately releasing steam by keeping the pressure cooker under running water or by carefully lifting the weight from the nozzle.

Allow cooked greens to come to room temperature and then mashed along with crushed garlic and salt.

Commonly the cooked greens are mashed using a churn dash in a wide mouthed mud pot. But I used to mash them using a blender.

Preparing keerai masiyal seems to be very easy but it should be done with utmost care. If it has been overcooked, greens might loose its green color and also its distinct taste. If its not cooked well it might not be palatable.

Now over to the recipe

Ingredients :
a hand full	araikeerai
2 or 3	garlic cloves
1/4 Tsp	salt [ adjust ]

Method :
Wash arai keerai thoroughly 2 or 3 times with water in a wide mouthed vessel.
Take 1/2 cup of water in a pressure cooker.
Put arai keerai in the cooker.
Close the lid with weight on.
Cook for 1 whistle on high flame.
Turn off the stove.

Release steam immediately by keeping the cooker under running water or simply removing weight.
Transfer into a bowl. Let the cooked arai keerai to come down to room temperature.

Do not throw away the water used for cooking.
It can be added to rasam or sambar.

Now in a mixie jar take garlic cloves ( remove skin ) and run for a second.

Then add the palak & salt and grind only for few seconds to get coarsely blended arai keerai masiyal.

Tasty tasty keerai masiyal with intense flavor of garlic is ready!!
It has to be consumed as soon as it has been prepared to enjoy its true taste.

Take hot hot white rice in a plate. Add 2 table spoon full of prepared keerai masiyal.
Mix well after adding a dash of gingelly oil [ sesame / till oil ].
Relish with sambar and vathakuzhambu.
AAh!! wow!! wow!! what a taste!! enjoy!!...

Note : The scientific name of Arai keerai is Amaranthus dubius.




Other recipes you might like to try

• Hover cursor over the picture to know the name of the recipe
• Click once to go to the post