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Classic Kerala Style Vegetable Stew gets a Soup Maker Makeover!

Kerala style stews are pretty famous. They’re light, flavourful and make good use of our favourite ingredient – coconuts! Despite being very mildly spiced, the unmistakable aroma of a traditional stew will make any Malayali’s mouth water. This vegetable stew is one of my step-mother’s signature dishes and it’s a family favourite! 

Traditionally, stews were only supposed to be made with potatoes and onions but over the years people have jazzed it up with beans, carrots and peas. When given the chance to up the nutrition we must always accept, so here we are with a not-so-traditional stew. Speaking of not so traditional, we’re also not using a lot of spices you usually find in vegetable stew recipes online. In fact, the only spice we’re adding is cardamom. That’s not to say that this won’t be flavourful because it certainly is! This vegetable stew gets its flavour from the curry leaves, ginger, cardamom and of course coconut oil! 

Equipment

I’ve been making good use of my Wonderchef Automatic Soup Maker. Thanks to this fantastic appliance, four out seven nights a week are soup nights! All I need for dinner is a big bowl of soup with some protein for extra nutrition. Good soup was a given with the soup maker, but I wanted to push it a bit further. As I was developing a recipe for Soup Maker Thai Green Curry, I realised that the perfect recipe that was in need of a soup maker makeover had been staring me in the face all this while – vegetable stew!

Soup Maker vs Pressure Cooker 

Vegetable stews are usually made in a pressure cooker and all it takes is a few whistles and you’re done. So you might be wondering, why do I need to make this in a soup maker then? And I have just the answer for you because that’s exactly what my step-mother asked me!

A pressure cooker might get the job done faster but you can’t just turn it on and forget about it now can you? Who’s going to count the whistles? It takes the same amount of prep to make it in a soup maker but the biggest advantage is that all you need to do is set the mode, press start and you’re done! The cycle continues on its own blending and cooking in stages. When it’s done, it stops cooking automatically and beeps to alert you. I can be a bit distracted in the kitchen sometimes so I won’t always remember how long my cooker has been on or how many whistles are done, so the soup maker version is definitely easier for me. 

The second reason is more specific to this recipe and one that funnily enough, my step-mother pointed out once we had made this a few times. Stews are better when they’ve been cooked for longer. This allows for the spices and flavours to really develop. In the olden days, they didn’t have pressure cookers so they would just make this on the stovetop and the soup maker recreated that in a way. As we all know, getting a parent to admit they were wrong is quite an achievement and by the end my step mother conceded that her own recipe was slightly better in the soup maker! 

Serve in Style!

We interrupt this recipe to bring your attention to Wonderchef’s new Venice Melamine Range. Melamine has earned a bad reputation over the past few years but the only thing of note is that you can’t use this in the microwave. My problem with melamine serveware was never safety, of course I knew it was completely safe to use. My major problem was how unattractive it looked! So imagine my surprise when I saw how beautiful the Venice range was! I’ve placed a Venice melamine bowl next to a bone china mug in the picture above and I’ll bet you can’t tell the difference in material just by looking at it. I love how Wonderchef has brought the same level of design and attention to detail to their affordable melamine range. 

Back to our scheduled programming then? 

There’s a lot of room for customisation with this recipe. Stews are generally more potato heavy and I’ve retained that in this recipe but you can adjust the ratios of vegetables to suit your tastes. Cauliflower, beans, carrots, peas and pumpkin all go well in the stew. As for accompaniments, grab the Wonderchef Crimson Non-Stick Appachetty to make appams in style or the 

 to make perfect idiyappams. Vegetable stew is also great with porottas or chapati. 

RECIPE CARD 

Serves: 4 people

Active Time: 15 minutes 

Total Time: 43 minutes

Ingredients

  • 1 ½ cups Chopped Potatoes (chopped into 1 inch cubes)
  • 1 cup Carrots (chopped into 1 inch long pieces) 
  • 1 cup Beans (chopped into 1 inch long pieces) 
  • 2 large Onions
  • 1 inch piece of Ginger
  • 3 large Green Chillies
  • 2 Cardamom Pods
  • 1 ½ cups coconut milk 
  • 2 ½ cups Water 
  • 2 sprigs Curry Leaves
  • 2 tsp salt
  • 2 Tbsp Coconut Oil (for frying the onions) 
  • 2 Tbsp Coconut Oil (for adding to the stew at the end)

Method: 

  1. Begin by preparing the vegetables. It’s always better to chop them into roughly the same size so that they’ll cook evenly. 
  2. In a small frying pan, add 2 tbsps of coconut oil and let it heat up. 
  3. Once the oil is hot add the chopped onions and grate some ginger over it. 
  4. Slit the green chillies and add them to the pan.
  5. Crush the cardamom pods and add it to the pan. 
  6. Cook until onions start to brown and then turn the pan off. 
  7. Add the chopped potatoes, carrots and beans to the soup maker along with the fried onions, coconut milk, water and curry leaves to the soup maker and give it a good mix. 
  8. Turn the soup maker on and select the chunky mode. 
  9. Let the soup maker do its thing for 28 minutes! 
  10. Once the soup maker is done, open the lid and check for salt.
  11. Add 2 tbsps of oil to the stew and mix well. 
  12. Serve with appams, idiyappams, porottas or chapatis and enjoy!

Author:  Sneha Sundar is the creator of You Dim Sum, You Lose Some; a philosophy she adopts both in and out of the kitchen.

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