Stirring up a Stew - The Making

A warm breeze blowing from the east, would sometimes ignite your senses and take you to the tropical lush green environs of Kerala, immediately bringing up the thoughts of fish marinated with coconut based masalas and cooked to perfection ! Fish may be a costly affair in Hyderabad and it is even tougher for a bachelor like me to get fresh sea-fish! But making a coconut based dish is often realizable and one such dish that I prefer cooking on that once-a-month occasion is vegetable stew known as “ishtu” in Kerala.


Stew with Kal Dosa, chips and fries 


Stew, to me, is one of the dishes that required very little effort and of course, it could make your cooking really simple. But I have noticed that very people in Hyderabad really “love” coconut based foods. The very thought of coconut in food sends jitters down their body and you can often hear the exclamatory expressions like “coconut !!??”, “yuck”, etc. But, if you love coconuts, then this is for you! [Believe me, coconut just increases the taste of the food manifold ! It makes the food less “hot”, in terms of chilli, but maintaining the spice in the food and also add a special aroma that really ignites the food sensors]

For a basic stew, all you need is potatoes, onions (not the sambhar or small onions) and coconut milk. Now making coconut milk is definitely not an easy job, especially if you are bachelor. Don’t worry! You can easily get coconut milk in the market. Ask for “Dabur” coconut milk or “Maggi” coconut powder[not sure if this is available now]. You need to have two varieties of coconut milk, the first milk and the second milk. The first milk is concentrated and is usually obtained by squeezing the grated coconut and extracting the milk. The second milk is obtained by adding a few drops of water to the extracted coconut grating (obtained after the extraction of first milk) and repeating the same process to extract the second milk. If you have obtained the coconut milk from market, then all you need to do is to separate the milk into two vessels and mix water in one of the vessels! Simple enough!!

Chop the onions and potato in lengthy slices, i.e., make a cut in the middle and then chop the onions so that you get length slices. Perform a similar procedure for potatoes before or after boiling it! [You could toss a coin and then decide when to do this!] You could also use other vegetables like carrot, beans, etc. Depending on the time availability, health consciousness, blah blah, you can take this decision.

Get the vessel on the fire and heat some good oil. Any oil can be used for this, but being a mallu myself, I would recommend good grade coconut oil. Dump the chopped onions and practice tennis for a while! Once the onions are ready to take the next layer, dump the potatoes and then of course chillis, ginger, garlic, etc and pour the second coconut milk so that all the vegetables are immersed in the milk and have ample space to swim around! [Don’t forget the salt]. Once it begins to boil, the aroma of coconut mixed with chillies would just engulf the air and make you swallow some of your saliva! What you need to do now is to take a table spoon, gently stir the boiling milk and take some of these in the table spoon. Gently blow over the liquid in the table spoon and then turn it around into your palm. With a saliva filled “sqweeeeeesh” sound, take a sip or two of the stew in preparation. Just ensure that it has the right spice, salt and the taste of coconut mixed with the potatoes! Now put it in high fire, and then pour the first milk. Stir it for a while and then add some coriander leaves to further enhance the aroma.

Your stew is ready! Now what do you eat stew with? Rice is definitely not the best option. A “Kal Dosa” or “Aappam” would be the ideal combo! I personally love to have stew with “Puttu” (a.k.a rice cake).This is always a must have for me whenever I travel to my home 1000 km south of Hyderabad. Nowadays, stew has become so popular that you would get it in any multi-cuisine restaurants. In Hyderabad, the best stew that I had was from the restaurant “Tabla”. There are other restaurants that serve really good stew. Some are really thick that you get a feeling that corn flour has been added to it to give that extra thickness. A good stew would definitely satisfy your taste buds but a little here or there and you would never look in that direction again, if you a first timer. Also have stew with the right combo!