Easy Potato Avial Recipe Kerala Style – How To Make Avial/Aviyal Recipe Using Potatoes – South Indian Kerala Style Urulakkizhangu/Urulai Kizhangu Avial Recipe
Potato avial recipe Kerala style (aviyal recipe or avial) ia made using potatoes & few tomato slices along with coconut and spices. Potato avial makes a yummy, healthy and easy vegetarian/vegan Indian style side dish with rice for lunch or dinner.
You can see here authentic avial recipe made using a mix of different vegetables.
Aviyal or avial recipe is a very popular traditional South Indian recipe originated from Kerala. The traditional Kerala style avial recipe calls for many types of traditional vegetables cooked along with coconut, tamarind extract, yogurt and spices, although the recipes may slightly vary from region to region. You can use freshly grated coconut or if it is not available, you can use unsweetened dried shredded coconut.
Coconut oil and fresh curry leaves add much flavor to Kerala style dishes like avial, so make sure you do use coconut oil and curry leaves. And the best thing is you can even buy fresh curry leaves online now!
However, there are certain vegetables which are great for making avial, even if you use only that one main vegetable (along with tomatoes) in the recipe.
Potato is one such vegetable, other vegetables like elephant yams, green plantain bananas, raw sliced jackfruit (jackfruit is not a vegetable, but tastes great when used in many recipes) etc.
This means even if the traditional recipe is usually made using a combination of vegetables, you can just use potatoes (and tomatoes) to make potato avial and it is a simple delicious side dish that goes well with rice and any curry especially south Indian delicacies like moru curry (yogurt with spices), sambar (south Indian vegetable stew) etc.
I love to have this potato avial just with rice and yogurt and it is actually a comfort food that brings back some beautiful memories.
Even though you can just use potatoes to make this recipe, I always add few pieces of tomatoes to aviyal, since it add the sourness needed for the dish. Alternatively you can use tamarind extract or just yogurt if you don’t want more sourness. I rarely use any tamarind extract for this kind of aviyal recipe, as I always use fresh tomatoes and yogurt to add the sourness.
So here is how you can make the Kerala style potato avial following this easy potato avial recipe or urulakizhangu avial recipe.
- Potatoes 4 to 5 medium
- Grated coconut or shredded unsweetened coconut 1 cup
- turmeric powder 1/2 teaspoon
- red chili powder 1/2 teaspoon
- jeera or cumin seeds a pinch
- Green chilies 1 to 2
- tamarind extract or yogurt 2 tablespoons
- tomato 1
- Curry leaves a few
- coconut oil 1 to 2 tablespoons
- Salt
- Water 1/4 cup
- Wash the potatoes, peel them and cut them into long similar sized pieces ( the pieces are thicker than you cut them for french fries).
- Cut the tomato lengthwise and keep it separate.
- Add the potatoes to a pot or saucepan and add little water.
- Switch on the stove, put on high flames and wait for the water to boil.
- Once the water starts boiling, add salt, turmeric powder and red chili powder, stir well and close the pot.
- Cook in low flames for about 5 to 6 minutes or until the potatoes are almost cooked.
- Meanwhile, you can grind together the grated coconut, green chilies and cumin seeds (if using cumin seeds) - it is also fine to add the finely grated coconut and sliced green chilies just like that if you are not using cumin seeds.
- Open the pan when the potatoes are cooked ( after 5 to 6 minutes), add the coconut mix ( along with cumin seeds if using), stir everything well. Add the tomato pieces too to the pot and mix well.
- Close and cook in low flame for 2 more minutes.
- Open the pan and add the yogurt, mix well.
- Add curry leaves and oil, gently stir all the ingredients until well combined.
- Serve the hot potato aviyal for lunch or dinner along with rice and any other curry!
Hope you found this potato avial recipe Kerala style helpful!
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