Keerai Poriyal | Greens Stirfry

Keerai (or greens) is one of the most healthy green leafy vegetable full of iron and vitamins. It is essential to include keerai in our daily meals. As a child, I never used to eat greens but as I grew older I changed! 

I remember, when I was little, my father's friend a naturopath, had come home and as he was giving us a diet chart, he asked my mum to include keerai 4 days a week! At that time, it was too much for me since I hated keerai! Now we regularly make keerai atleast 3-4 days a week, when it's available.

You can make a keerai masiyal or make a poriyal with this vegetable. You can follow the same procedure for any of the keerai variety you find.

KEERAI PORIYAL
Preparation time 10 mins | Cooking time 15 mins | Serves 2

Ingredients

• Keerai - 1 bunch
• Onion - 1, chopped
• Garlic - 5
• Green chilli - 1 or 2, slit
• Water - 1/4 cup
• Coconut - 3 tbsp
• Salt - to taste

To Temper

• Oil - 1 tbsp
• Mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp
• Urad dal - 1/4 tsp
• Curry leaves - 1 sprig

Method

1. Wash the greens and chop it finely. Chop the onions too and set aside.

2. In a pan, heat oil. Add the mustard seeds, urad dal and curry leaves.

3. When the mustard seeds splutter, add the onions. Saute until the onions are translucent.

4. Add the garlic and slit green chilli. Saute for another minute.

5. Now add the chopped greens. Add 1/4 cup water and cook for about 8 minutes in medium flame until the greens are cooked thoroughly.

6. Once done, add the salt and grated coconut, mix well and switch off.

Notes

1. Do not add too much water. The greens will leave some water as it gets cooked. 1/4 cup is more than enough.

2. If you don't want the greens to change color, then don't cover the pan when you cook the greens and you can add 1/4 tsp sugar to retain the green color.

3. You can make this without the coconut too.

4. I used only 1 green chilli, you can add more to make a spicy poriyal.

Until next time,

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