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Kerala Olan Recipe | Sadya Recipe
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3.82 from 16 votes

Kerala Olan Recipe | Sadya Recipe

Olan is one of the traditional and popular Kerala dish. It's usually made for all the festive occasions, especially for the Onam Sadya (Onasadya). It's made using pumpkins, cow peas and coconut milk. With the flavor of coconut, green chili and curry leaves this is very tasty stew served as an accompaniment with rice.
Prep Time10 minutes
Cook Time30 minutes
Soaking Time8 hours
Total Time40 minutes
Course: Accompaniment, Kootu varieties (Stew)
Cuisine: Indian, Kerala, South Indian
Servings: 4 people
Calories: 43kcal
Author: Sowmya Venkatachalam

Equipment

  • Pressure Cooker

Ingredients

  • ½ cup Red Cow Peas (Karamani)
  • 2 cups Ash gourd (Kumbalanga / Poosanikkai) cubed
  • 4 nos Green Chili slit (adjust to your spice level)
  • 1 cup Thin Coconut Milk
  • ¼ cup Thick Coconut Milk
  • 1 sprig Curry leaves
  • 1½ teaspoon Salt adjust as needed
  • 1 tablespoon Coconut Oil

Instructions

Soaking Karamani (Cow Peas)

  • Soak the Karamani in the water overnight. (minimum 6 hours)

Cooking the Karamani (Cow peas)

  • Next day, Drain the water and rinse the Karamani again. Drain extra water. Add ½ teaspoon of salt.
  • Take this to a pressure cooker, add 1 cup of water and pressure cook over 1 whistle. Since we have soaked the Karamani already, it will get cooked over just 1 whistle.
  • Once the pressure is released, check if the Karamani is cooked and keep it aside.

Chopping the vegetable

  • Remove the skin of the ash gourd (white pumpkin) and cube it into medium size pieces. Keep the chopped vegetable in the water.

Cooking Olan

  • Add the cooked karamani to a pan.
  • Next, add the chopped ash gourd cubes to the pan.
  • Also add thin coconut milk. Cover the pan, keep the flame in medium and allow the vegetable to get cooked in the coconut milk.
  • In between, please check if the ash gourd is cooking and add more water / coconut milk
  • Once the ashgourd is cooked completely, add slit green chili, sprig of curry leaves and salt. Give a good stir.
  • Now add the thick coconut milk. Keep the olan in low flame for another couple of minutes and give it a good mix. Make sure that we don't bring the mixture to boil
  • Finally garnish with coconut oil and few more curry leaves.
  • Relish the delicious Olan with Sambar or Mor Curry and enjoy this delicious Olan!

Video

Notes

  1. You can also add Yellow Pumpkin to the Olan. Instead of only Ash-gourd, you can add ½ quantity of Yellow Pumpkin and ½ quantity of Ash-gourd
  2. Do not overcook the cow peas. Instead of cow peas, you can also add black eyed pea.
  3. Do not overcook the pumpkins
  4. I have used the store bought tinned coconut milk. Traditionally we grind the coconut and extract the coconut milk. If you have a coconut, use 1 coconut to grind and extract the milk. 
  5. Once the thick coconut milk is added, do not bring it to boil. Just mix the mixture while in the flame 

Nutrition

Serving: 0.25cup | Calories: 43kcal | Carbohydrates: 6g | Protein: 2g | Fat: 1g