South Indian
Keerai Poriyal (Greens)
Keerai Poriyal (Greens) is South Indian home cooking, eaten at lunch and dinner. On the plate it is the cooked vegetable. Below is what usually sits beside it, what it does and does not contain, and what else to cook once you have made it.
Ingredients
- 1.5 lb spinach or amaranth greens
- 2 tbsp coconut oil
- 1 tsp mustard seeds
- 1 tsp urad dal
- 3 garlic cloves
- 2 dried red chilies
- 1/4 tsp turmeric
- 1/3 cup fresh grated coconut
- 1/2 tsp salt
How to cook it
- Wash the greens well and chop them roughly.
- Heat the coconut oil in a wide pan, let the mustard seeds pop, then add the urad dal and cook until golden.
- Add the crushed garlic and dried red chilies and let them sizzle for a few seconds.
- Add the chopped greens, turmeric, and salt in batches, tossing until wilted, and cook over medium heat until any water cooks off, about 8 minutes.
- Fold in the grated coconut and serve warm alongside rice and sambar.
Serve it with
A South Indian dinner is a plate rather than a single dish. These are the courses that normally sit beside Keerai Poriyal (Greens), read from the same composition Dinejot builds a real meal from.
-
The dish at the centre
-
What it is eaten with
-
The sharp little thing
-
Something cool and fresh
A course labelled with another kitchen's name comes from a cuisine in the same family, which is where this plate usually borrows it from.
Safe at your table
Dinejot tracks ten allergens and tags every one of them by hand, so the absences below are as deliberate as the presences. Keerai Poriyal (Greens) carries coconut. It is free of the remaining 9 allergens on that list.
| Allergen | In this dish | Cook this instead |
|---|---|---|
| Peanuts | No | |
| Tree nuts | No | |
| Dairy | No | |
| Gluten | No | |
| Shellfish | No | |
| Eggs | No | |
| Soy | No | |
| Fish | No | |
| Sesame | No | |
| Coconut | Yes | Nothing comparable without it yet |
These tags are set by a person rather than inferred from an ingredient list, and they describe the recipe as written here. Read the labels on whatever you actually buy.
What it brings to the plate
Bands, not numbers. Dinejot does not weigh anybody's food, so it says light, moderate or hearty and stops there. This dish was read and set by hand.
- Calorie band
- Light
- Protein
- Low
- Food groups it covers
- Vegetables and Nuts and seeds
- How this was set
- Hand audited
When to cook it
Keerai Poriyal (Greens) takes about 20 minutes from a cold stove to the table, and the cooking itself is easy going. It is eaten at lunch and dinner. Nothing in the calendar rules it out, so it is a year round dish.
Watch someone make it
Nothing loads from YouTube until you press play. Until then this is one still image, which is why the page opens as quickly as it does.
More to cook
Cooked from the same things
Other dishes built on spinach and coconut.
From the same kitchens
More cooking from South India.
Does the same job on the plate
Swap any of these in when you want a meal the same shape.
Cook this with your whole family
Dinejot plans breakfast, lunch and dinner as whole plates, built around the cooking you call home and filtered for the allergies at your table.
Meal suggestions support your goals. They are not medical advice. Please ask your doctor about your family's health needs.