Keerai poriyal | Green leaves stirfry
Keerai poriyal is a side dish prepared by stir-frying fresh green vegetable, onions and red chillies.
Today I made this poriyal with arai keerai which is very common in Tamil Nadu. Please do check my other keerai recipes like keerai kootu and keerai masiyal.
Greens or green leaves or green vegetables are always considered healthy and recommended by doctors for a healthy lifestyle.
In order to maintain young as well as disease less life, regular consumption of fruits and vegetables especially these green vegetables is highly important.
Usually, almost all kinds of greens take only a few minutes to get cooked. Hence avoid overcooking as you may lose the essential nutrients.
A poriyal or stirfry is ideal to serve only when it is in dry form. So try to use very less water to make any kind of poriyal only when necessary.
Few health notes about the green leaves(keerai) to remember:
Green vegetables are good sources of folate, which can reduce your risk of cardiovascular disease and memory loss as well as warding off depression.
Vitamin E found in green leafy vegetables works with vitamin C to keep skin healthy as you age. This vitamin also helps protect your skin from the sun’s damaging rays and may help reduce your risk of cataracts and macular degeneration.
To get the full benefits, eat at least five servings of vegetables daily, including greens.
I used arai keerai to make this poriyal.
A quick video:
Keerai poriyal | Green leaves stirfry
Ingredients
Ingredients:
- 1 bunch keerai
- ½ tsp mustard seeds
- ½ tsp cumin seeds
- 1 tsp gram dal
- 1 tsp urad dal
- 1 big onion
- 5 red chillies
- ¾ tsp salt
- ¼ tsp turmeric powder
- 2 tbsp grated coconut
Instructions
Preparation:
- Chop and clean the leaves thoroughly. change water two to three times and wash well. Drain the water completely and keep aside.
- Cleaning the keerai leaves properly is an essential step as greens tend to have lots of soil.
- Grate coconut and keep aside.
Recipe to make keerai poriyal:
- Heat oil in a kadai and season with mustard and cumin seeds.
- Let them splutter and add gram dal and urad dal.
- Fry until dal becomes light brown in color.
- Add chopped onions and cook until soft.
- Put split red chillies.
- Required salt and some turmeric powder.
- Now add cleaned and chopped keerai leaves.
- Cover with a lid and keep in low flame.
- In five minutes the keerai leaves will become soft and settle down with its own water
- Sprinkle water if required, cover again, cook in medium flame. DO NOT POUR WATER.
- Cook only for five minutes until the leaves turn from its natural light green to dark green in color.
- Mix the freshly grated coconut and switch off. There should not be any water while adding coconut at last. If there is moisture left still wait for the water to evaporate and then add coconut.
- Ready to serve.
Notes
Nutrition
Preparation:
- Chop and clean the leaves thoroughly. change water two to three times and wash well. Drain the water completely and keep aside.
- Cleaning the keerai leaves properly is an essential step as greens tend to have lots of soil.
- Grate coconut and keep aside.
Recipe to make keerai poriyal:
- Heat oil in a kadai and season with mustard and cumin seeds.
- Let them splutter and add gram dal and urad dal.
- Fry until dal becomes light brown in color.
- Add chopped onions and cook until soft.
- Put split red chillies.
- Required salt and some turmeric powder.
- Now add cleaned and chopped keerai leaves.
- Cover with a lid and keep in low flame.
- In five minutes the keerai leaves will become soft and settle down with its own water
- Sprinkle water if required, cover again, cook in medium flame. DO NOT POUR WATER.
- Cook only for five minutes until the leaves turn from its natural light green to dark green in color.
- Mix the freshly grated coconut and switch off. There should not be any water while adding coconut at last. If there is moisture left still wait for the water to evaporate and then add coconut.
- Ready to serve with simple Parupu rasam or Tomato rasam
Tips:
1) Always cook keerai freshly. Don’t keep in the refrigerator for more than a day.
2) Adjust red Chillies number to suit your needs.
3) If you don’t have coconut, replace coconut with a tbsp of fried gram(pottukadalai)powder. This is my mom’s idea to achieve the dryness required for stirfry poriyal.
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