Collard Greens Poricha Kootu – Dal With Collard Greens

Cooking greens with dal is the safest thing to do when you are trying new greens. Lentils are quite forgiving, that they absorb the flaws of other ingredients (if any), in any recipe. They are creamy, comforting and can be prepared in countless number of ways with ingredients on hand. If you don’t like a particular green with dal, then you may never like the green at all. At least, I don’t (I have had really bad experiences with some unknown Asian greens).

After deciding that I and G like a specific green, I normally move on to using ‘em in other recipes. But with collard greens, I always come back to dal, particularly moong. The combination of creamy moong dal with hearty collard is a winner in our home.

I would say, collards are kale grown without the ruffles but with much pleasanter taste. After all, they belong to the same cabbage family. Collards are an excellent source of Calcium, Iron, Manganese and Dietary Fiber. They thrive in colder temperatures, so winter is the best time to buy ‘em.

Cooking collards on stove-top takes about 25 minutes, and they still retain their crunchiness. Since I make it with dal, I find pressure cooking the greens to be much faster and easier. The ingredients are barely chopped and thrown into the cooker and then blended finally to attain the desired consistency. If you don’t have a blender, finely chop the vegetables before cooking.

In the Northern hemisphere, unripe tomatoes are picked before the first frost. They are aplenty in our city these past few weeks. In a recent trip to the farmer’s market, I came back with these green beauties. After making salsa and fried green tomatoes, I added the last two to this dal. The tart unripe tomatoes added a totally new dimension that we absolutely loved. If you are not game for tart green tomatoes, then go with red tomatoes. They too contribute well with their sweet flavour and red colour.

Ingredients

Collard Greens – 4 leaves, chopped along with stems into big pieces
Moong dal – ½ cup
Green tomatoes or red tomatoes or a combination of both – 2, chopped into big pieces
Grated coconut – 2 tbsp
Green chillies – 2
Cumin seeds – 2 tsp
Mustard seeds – ½ tsp
Curry leaves – few
Turmeric powder – 1 tsp
Oil – 1 tsp
Salt

Method

In a pressure cooker, cook moong dal, collard greens, tomatoes (green and/or red), green chillies, cumin seeds and turmeric powder with 3 cups of water, for 3 whistles. Once the pressure subsides, remove the cooker lid, and let it cool a bit. Add coconut and salt to the cooked dal. Using a hand blender, lightly blend dal, till the greens and tomatoes are chopped into smaller pieces.

In a seasoning pan, heat oil, splutter mustard seeds and toast curry leaves. Add to the dal. Serve hot with any spicy sautéed vegetable and rice lightly drizzled with sesame oil.

Collard greens kootu with cauliflower, pan-roasted with sambar powder

This is my final installment of 1-in-3 – Western Greens, Indian Style. This creamy comfort is on its way to My Legume Love Affair, hosted by Susan, The Well-Seasoned Cook. Her gifted hands delight the readers with not only delicious recipes, but also with well-written posts.