Cheenikai Kalasu | Pumpkin & chickpeas in coconut gravy
Sweet pumpkins and cooked chickpeas in a mildly spiced, creamy coconut gravy spiced with cumin seeds.
Equipment
- pressure cooker
- Mixer-grinder/blender
Ingredients
- ½ cup dry chickpeas/chana or use 1 can of chickpeas
- 3 cups pumpkin chopped into 1-2 inch pieces
- 1 cup fresh/frozen grated coconut at room temperature
- 1 tsp cumin seeds/jeera
- 1 tsp jaggery, unrefined Indian sugar adjust to suit your taste
- 2 Indian/Thai green chillies adjust to suit your taste
- 1 sprig curry leaves , divided optional but recommended
- 3½ cups water, divided
- salt to taste
For hot oil seasoning/tadka/oggarane
- 2 tsp oil preferably coconut oil
- ½ tsp black mustard seeds
- 1 dry red chilli broken
Instructions
Prepare chickpeas
- Wash chickpeas. Soak them in water for at least 5 hours or overnight.
- Cook soaked chickpeas with half tsp of salt until tender. Note: I pressure cook chickpeas with 1 cup of water in an Instant pot for 15 minutes in high pressure, Normal pressure release.
Prepare curry
- Defrost coconut if using frozen. Coconut needs to be at room temperature or the fat separates upon blending.Note: Warm water can be used to blend if coconut is still cool to touch.
- Chop pumpkin into bite sized pieces.
- Add pumpkin into a pot, add 1 cup water, salt, turmeric, jaggery and cook until the vegetables are fork tender.Note: Pumpkins can get mushy very quickly once they are cooked. Do keep an eye on them.
- Add the cooked chickpeas in, along with its stock/cooking liquid. Or add in a can of chickpeas.
- Meanwhile, in a blender, add coconut, fresh green chillies, 4-5 curry leaves, cumin seeds, 1/2 cup water and blend into a very smooth paste.
- Add the blended coconut paste into the pot with cooked pumpkin and chickpeas.
- Adjust water and salt. ½-1 cup water can be added at this stage, depending on how thick you like your curry.
- On medium heat, bring the curry to a gentle boil. Stir occasionally.
- Simmer for two minutes and turn off the heat.
Hot oil seasoning/tadka/oggarane
- Heat coconut oil in a small heavy bottomed pan on medium-high heat.
- Add in the mustard seeds and broken dry red chillies.
- When mustard splutters, add curry leaves.
- Pour the hot oil, along with the spices over the curry.
- Cover. Mix and serve with rice.
Video
Notes
- Use fresh/frozen coconut, not dry dessicated.
- Coconut has to be at room temperature when blending, if not, the fat separates on blending.
- You can add one of the green chillies while cooking the vegetables.
- If you want to reduce the quantity of coconut, add a teaspoon of rice when blending the coconut, it will help thicken the curry.
- I recommend not skipping the hot oil seasoning/tadka as it adds a ton of flavour.
- In warmer temperatures, refrigerate this pumpkin chickpea curry within 6-7 hours of preparation. Curries with fresh coconut can otherwise go bad.
- The curry does reheat well. It can be prepared and stored in the refrigerator. Remove only the required portion and reheat.