Achinga / Payar Chena Mezhukkuparatti (Cowpea pods and Elephant Foot Yam Stir fried Kerala Style)

This is again a very commonly prepared dish in Kerala and one of the easiest too... The only thing that takes a bit of time is to chop the Achinga (Cowpea pods) and also take out the cowpeas from the pods from which peas can be taken out. 

As we had explained the health benefits of Cowpea Pods in the earlier post on Achinga Mezhukkuparatti , we are not detailing it here again. The same is the case with the health benefits of Yam which we have explained in the earlier post on Chena Mezhukkuparatti. You can refer to these posts for details.

So lets directly get into preparation method.


Ingredients:

Cowpeas pods - 250 gms

Elephant foot Yam-100 gms

Onion - Big, 1 no. or medium - 2 nos. OR Shallots (chuvannaulli/cheriya ulli) - 10 nos.

Red Chilly flakes - 2 teaspoons

Turmeric powder - 1 teaspoon

Curry leaves - 4-6 leaves

Salt to taste

Process:

Clean the cowpeas pods. Chop the cowpeas at length of about 2 cms. If there are pods from which you can take the peas out, do the same. The combination of pods and peas improve the taste of the dish to a very great extent.

Remove the skin and clean the yam thoroughly. Chop the yam into small pieces of around 1 cm each. 

Chop onions/shallots into small pieces and keep aside. Shallots would be a better option since they add greater taste to the dish.

Take a frying pan/kadai (cheena chatti in Malayalam) and pour 2 tablespoons of oil. Once the oil is hot, put the chopped onion into it.  Add salt to the onions (adding salt will speeds up the frying of the onions). 

When onions turn into light brown colour, add the red chilly flakes and turmeric powder into it. 

Add the chopped cowpea pods and chopped yam into it and add salt to taste. Mix thoroughly and close the pan with a lid.

Once the cow peas almost cooked, open the lid. 

Mix the contents thoroughly and allow it to fry for 5 or 10 minutes with the lid open.
 
Pl. note that this is not deep fried and hence only 2 table spoons of oil would be required to cook this.


Achinga Chena Mezhukkuparatti is ready!! 

Serves 3-4…

#achinga, #cowpeas, #yam, #mezhukkupuratti, #keralarecipes, #indianrecipes, #vegetarian