Muringakaaya Chelli Parippu Curry ~ Malabar Drumstick Lentil Curry with Dried Shrimp

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Time for the second week of the Blogging Marathon #88! After choosing “Protien Rich Ingredient” as the first theme, where I chose eggs, and featured Double Cheese Omelette, Akuri and Microwave Omelette, the second week theme that I chose was also another protien ingredient – “Dazzling Dals”. I had already done a lentil theme in one of the previous BM edition, but then lentil recipes are never enough, right? We are always looking at new ways of cooking up lentils so that people who have folks like me at home who frown at the sight of lentils will at least eat them without much fuss. 😀

The first recipe I am featuring is an example of how we Malabaris love to add a non-vegetarian twist to our vegetarian dishes. Hehe… Most of the households will have a little jar of “chelli” (ചെള്ളി) in our pantry. It is basically sun dried shrimp that shrinks to small size. The interesting part is that this ingredient is used in a lot of South Asian dishes, like Malay and Indonesian cooking, so I am not sure who influenced whom! Even though I can’t eat fresh prawns due to allergy reasons, I love to gorge on dishes which includes its dried counterpart, especially “chelli chammanthi”, which is a dry coconut chutney, that goes amazingly well with some neriya dosa – yum! Unfortunately, I haven’t made it yet for the blog, must do so quite soon!

This is a simple lentil curry, which has drumsticks in it and is spiked with some powdered chelli. You can use any vegetable instead of drumstick, but this dried shrimp powder goes really well with this vegetable and also with aubergines. In fact this recipe is not much difference from the brinjal curry I shared some time ago, but the addition of this tiny bit of this ingredients makes a lot of difference to the end taste. You really wouldn’t mind going for a second serving of rice with this delicious curry. Please don’t mind the crappy pictures that I took from my mobile since I had no mood to pull up my camera and I was having a howling group at the background who were just plain hungry!

If you are in a mood for a rice meal for dinner during one of these Ramadan nights, then this one’s the curry for you! Pair it up with a nice fish fry and a beans upperi and your dinner is set… yum…

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4.89 from 9 votes

Muringakaaya Chelli Parippu Curry ~ Malabar Drumstick Lentil Curry with Dried Shrimp

Prep Time 5 minutes minutes

Cook Time 30 minutes minutes

Total Time 35 minutes minutes

Servings 4

Author Rafeeda

Ingredients

• 2 long drumsticks muringakaaya
• 1/3 cup masoor dal
• 1/4 tsp turmeric powder
• 2 green chillies slit
• Salt to taste
• FOR GRINDING:
• 1/4 cup grated coconut
• 1 tbsp chelli/ dried shrimp
• 1/2 tsp fennel powder
• 1 clove garlic
• 1 pearl onion
• FOR TEMPERING:
• 1 tbsp coconut oil
• 1 tsp mustard seeds
• 1 sprig curry leaves
• 3-4 dried red chilli

Instructions

• Clean the drumsticks and cut into small pieces.
• Put the dal along with turmeric, green chillies and salt, add 2 cups of water and bring it to a boil.
• Cook on low flame till the dal is almost done. Add in the drumsticks and more water if needed and cook till done.
• Meanwhile, grind the ingredients under "for grinding" with little water till smooth.
• Add it to the cooked dal and cook on simmer for five minutes. Switch off.
• Heat oil for tempering. Splutter the mustard seeds. Fry the curry leaves and dried chilies briefly. Pour into curry and keep closed for five minutes.
• Serve hot with rice and fish fry.

Check out the Blogging Marathon page to see what the other Blogging Marathoners are doing this BM#88

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