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Vegetable Stew With Coconut Milk

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Vegetable Stew With Coconut Milk

This is a simple and mild vegetable curry prepared in Kerala and parts of Tamil Nadu, where coconuts are found in abundance and form an integral part of everyday diet. In parts of Kerala where I grew up, this is known as “ishtoo” in the local dialect, ishtoo being a play on the English word “stew”. It is a really simple and refreshing dish that can be eaten with slices of bread or south Indian breakfast breads like appam or idiyappam (hoppers).

Vegetable Stew With Coconut Milk

When it comes to Indian food, many people tend to think that all there is to Indian food are those red tomato-based gravies served in Indian restaurants abroad. That simply is not the case. As you can see, this stew is mild and well, almost white. The stew is redolent with whole aromatic spices like cinnamon, cloves, green cardamom and bay leaves. A few cracked black peppercorns add a little bit of heat. Some onions, ginger and garlic are sauteed lightly along with the spices and lots of fresh curry leaves. A medley of vegetables are added along with fresh coconut milk and cooked till tender. The whole thing is then finished off with another splash of thick, creamy coconut milk. And that’s all there is to it. There is no ingredient that adds any “heat” to this dish. Rather, the flavor is not spicy, yet extremely aromatic and flavorful. As for the vegetables, potatoes, carrots, green beans and peas are definitely used. Some other vegetables that you can possibly use in this recipe are corn, cauliflower, broccoli, sweet peppers, etc.

Aromatic Whole Spices

This vegetable stew is served as breakfast along with puttu, appams or idiyappams. All three are breakfast “breads” commonly made with rice flour. You can find an idiyappam recipe on the blog here. What you see in the picture below is stew with puttu, another kind of steamed rice cakes.

Vegetable Stew With Coconut Milk

Vegetable Stew With Coconut Milk
 
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A mild and aromatic vegan stew redolent with aromatic spices, full of fresh, colorful vegetables and cooked in creamy coconut milk.
Author:
Recipe type: Main
Cuisine: Indian
Serves: 4
You will need:
  • Oil - 2 tbsp
  • Whole spices - Cinnamon – a long piece, green cardamom pods – 3, cloves – 3, bay leaves - 2
  • Curry leaves - a few
  • Onion - 1 small, finely chopped
  • Ginger - 2 tsp, chopped
  • Garlic - 2 small cloves, minced
  • Black pepper - ½ tsp, freshly cracked
  • Potatoes - 1 large, diced
  • Carrot - 1, diced
  • Green beans - 3-4, cut into 1" pieces
  • Green peas - ½ cup
  • Thin coconut milk - 1½ cups
  • Salt - to taste
  • Thick coconut milk - ½ cup
How to:
  1. You will need:
  2. Heat oil in a large pan. Add the whole spices and curry leaves, and let them sputter. (You can crush the whole spices for more flavor, but my hubby hates finding cardamom seeds in his curry, so I leave it whole.)
  3. Add the onions, ginger and garlic. Saute well till the onions turn soft and translucent. Do not brown them. Add cracked black pepper and mix well.
  4. Add the vegetables, thin coconut milk and salt to taste. Cover and cook till the vegetables are soft, around 10 minutes.
  5. Open the lid, check seasoning and add the thick coconut milk. Let it simmer for a couple more minutes or till heated through, but do not boil the stew after adding thick coconut milk.
  6. A simple trick I learned from my mom, is to mash a couple of the potatoes cubes to add some thickness to the gravy.
  7. Serve hot with bread or Indian breakfast breads like puttu, appam or idiyappam.
Notes:
1. If using dried peas, soak them in water and pressure cook them first. If using fresh or frozen green peas, you can simply cook them along with the other vegetables.
2. If using canned coconut milk, open the can without shaking and skim off ½ cup of thick milk collected at the top to use as thick coconut milk. If using coconut powder, prepare thin and thick milks as per package instructions. But of course, nothing beats the real deal. Freshly squeezed coconut milk is always the best!
3. An easy variation of this recipe is to cook the vegetables in a little water and finish off with some heavy cream. While it looks the same, the flavor is different from that of the original recipe with coconut milk and of course, it will no longer be vegan. But this can be an easy substitution if you run out of coconut milk.

Delicious, flavorful vegetable stew is now ready!

Vegetable Stew With Coconut Milk

I hated vegetables as a kid, but absolutely loved this dish. I used to call it the tricolor stew because of the potatoes, carrots and peas!

Vegetable Stew With Coconut Milk

Do let me know if you try this recipe.

I am linking up to parties at the awesome blogs.

Comments

  1. Hi,
    I am trying this. I will feature it on my blog today at the new Home Sweet Home party! i have this year become a coconut lover! Thank you for sharing this recipe!
    Sherry

    Reply

  7. I love how simple and easy this is – I bet it is delicious! Thanks for sharing it with us at LWLS this week!

    Reply

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