Vegetables in coconut milk (Valval)

Valval is a very popular Konkani dish. Valval is a coconut milk based curry with lots of vegetables in it. The coconut milk makes the curry creamy, cumin seasoning gives the curry a wonderful flavour. A subtle, delicious curry to go with your bowl of rice. This curry is similar to Avial from Kerala.

A whole lot of veggies are used to make valval. Different vegetables are used and the ones that are usually used to prepare valval are pumpkin (dudde), potatoes (batato), yam (surnu/suran), ash gourd (kuvale), bottle gourd (gardudde), sweet potatoes (kanang), peas (batani), breadfruit (jeev kadgi), ivy gourd (thendle), beans, lady's finger/okra (bhendi), mangalore cucumber (magge), yard long beans (alsando), kantola/teasel gourd (phagil), ridge gourd (gosale), beetroot, raw banana (randayi kyale), carrots, snake gourd (poddale), tender cashews (bibbo) or dried cashews.

You can use all of them or just a few of them depending on your liking and availability. If you are using most of these vegetables, just a few pieces of each will suffice.

P.S: You can try making valval using carton/store bought coconut milk for sake of ease & for a quick curry. Though I recommend you to make some coconut milk super quick at home to avoid the preservatives used in packed coconut milk.

Ingredients:

1 cup grated coconut
2 cups of chopped vegetables
1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds
2 leaflets of curry leaves
2 dried red chillies
4-5 green chillies
2 tablespoons of ghee/oil
2 teaspoons of rice flour/plain flour
Salt to taste

Serves: 2-3

Preparation Time: 50 minutes

Preparation Method:

1. Wash and chop the vegetables. Peel veggies like yam, sweet potatoes, breadfruit, ridge gourd, beetroot, snake gourd, raw banana. You can choose to leave the peel on, on most vegetables.

2. Pressure cook all the veggies with 1 cup of water and salt for just a whistle. Don't over cook them or else they'll just dissolve completely in the curry.

3. Meanwhile extract coconut milk. To do that, to the grated coconut add 2 cups of water and grind it using a blender. Strain and collect the coconut milk in a vessel. Keep this thick coconut milk aside. 

4. To the ground, strained grated coconut, add about 3/4 cup of water and blend again. Strain and collect the coconut milk in a separate cooking vessel. This coconut milk isn't as thick and concentrated as the first coconut milk.

5. To the thin coconut milk add rice flour/plain flour and mix well such that there are no clumps. Add slit green chillies and bring it to boil.

Adding flour to the curry gives the curry a nice, thick consistency. Flour is dissolved in coconut milk before boiling it to prevent any clump formation.

6. Once the coconut milk comes to a boil, let it simmer for 3-4 minutes so that the green chillies cook a little. 

7. Then add in thick coconut milk, salt and mix well.

8. Add pressure cooked veggies to it and mix well. Check and adjust salt.

Add in the broth used to cook the veggies only if required, if your curry becomes too thick. This curry is semi thick in consistency so do not add any water, add only coconut milk.

9. Simmer the curry for 3-4 minutes and then remove it off heat. 

10. Then season the curry. Seasoning: Heat oil/ghee in a tempering pan, add in mustard seeds and cumin seeds. When they start popping add in dried red chillies cut into small pieces, curry leaves and let them sizzle. Add this seasoning to the curry and mix well.

11. Serve the curry hot with a bowl of steaming hot rice.

Side Note:

1. You can add 2 tablespoons of soaked, finely ground cashewnuts or 2 tablespoons of finely ground, grated coconut to the curry while cooking the vegetables to make the curry even more rich and creamy. 

2. Alternatively, you can thicken the curry by adding in a little extra flour (rice flour or plain flour).

3. Follow the above 2 steps if you end up having thin, watery coconut milk and need to give the curry a thick consistency.

For more Konkani cuisine curry recipes look here. 

Tags: Vegetables, vegetarian, konkani food, konkani recipe, valval, coconut milk, curry, gravy, side dish, lunch, dinner, Konkani recipe, Konkani dish, Konkani cuisine, Udupi cuisine, Mangalore food, Konkani food