Red Spinach/Amaranth or Cheera is highly nutritious and iron rich veggie. Most kerala houses have cheera/ Red spinach plants grown in their gardens. This thoran/stir fry is best combined with hot rice and Kachiyamoru/Spiced buttermilk. This is a very simple stir fry and the only time taken is to clean and chop the leaves. As a child we were not very fond of leafy vegetables and my mom used to struggle to make me and my sister get some nutrition. Well she started adding eggs to the thoran's. And we loved it. You can make these plain without the egg to make it pure vegetarian dish. Lets see how this is done. Step by step image is given below for reference.
Preparation time~20 minutes
Cooking time~10 minutes
Serves ~ 3
Serves ~ 3
Ingredients
- Cheera /red spinach a bunch
- Onion- 1 chopped
- turmeric powder 1/4 tsp
- coconut oil 2 tsp
- mustard seeds 1/2 tsp
- salt to taste
- curry leaves a sprig
- coconut 1/3 cup
- green chilli 2-3 vertical sliced
- Cumin seeds- 1tsp
- Egg - 1 (optional)
- Chop off about 4" above the roots, Wash the remaining red spinach under running water 4-5 times. Drain water completely.
- Chop the leaves finely and keep aside
- Coarsely grind coconut, along with 1 tsp cumin seeds , turmeric powder and slit green chillies.
- Heat coconut oil in a pan and add mustard seeds, when it splutters, add chopped onion and curry leaf
- Once onions are translucent, transfer the coarsely ground coconut mix into the onion and saute for 1 min on low flame
- Add the chopped red spinach leaves and mix well.
- Cover and cook for 3 minutes. Uncover the lid, add salt and 2 tbsp water at this point and mix well. Add and cover the mix again for 5 - 7 minutes.
- Uncover the lid, add the egg and scramble it until everything is well combined.
- Wait till the moisture is dried up.
- Enjoy with steamed rice.
- Add salt only once the leaves are wilted.
- Adding egg is optional, though it adds a nice flavor to the stir fry (my mom's way), its completely optional.
- If not adding eggs, the method will be same and once the leaves are wilted and cooked well you can remove from pan and serve.
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Made it with green spinach.
ReplyDeleteYummy and healthy.
Super combo
Thank you so much for your feedback. Glad to know you loved it. You can also use the same recipe for padwal/ snake gourd sabji/stir fry. Try it once and you will love that too.
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