Erissery

Erissery is a tasty Kerala dish of two types, one with plantain or yam and the other with yellow pumpkin and red beans. I like the red beans waala, and tried it out.

Within this itself, I found many variations and many ingredients. Here is how I made it.

Ingredients

Red beans (glossary of bean varieties incase you are wondering what it is) - 1/2 cup
Yellow pumpkin cubed 1 cup
Red chilli powder 1 tsp
Salt to taste
Grated coconut 2 tsp
Jeera 1/2 tsp
Mustard seeds, red chillies, curry leaves, coconut scrapped for seasoning.
Oil for seasoning

Method

1. Cook the yellow pumpkin with salt, turmeric powder and chilli powder in 1/2 cup water. The pumpkin should be cooked but still firm, not mushy. Keep aside.
2. Cook the red beans with water in a pressure cooker. The red beans should be well cooked.
3. Grind coconut and jeera to a fine paste. Add it to the beans + pumpkin. Simmer for few minutes. Add half spoon sugar if there is no sweet taste at all. The dish should be slightly sweet.
4. Heat coconut oil, add mustard seeds, red chillies, curry leaves and season. Fry coconut separately and season.

Note
I have purposefully omitted the onion and garlic in my preparation, since I do not consider them to be 'sadhya' specific ingredients. Many recipies that I saw called for garlic and few pearl onions to be ground with the coconut.
I omitted green chillies too in my paste since the spice of the red chilli was sufficient.

This is a side dish. Consistency should be that of an avial or kootu.