Summer is officially here, till now what we had been just prelim rounds. You feel as if you will just melt away if you are in the sun. If you are in the house, you feel stuffy and sweaty.

A whole lot of cooling recipes will be included in the daily cooking. Our fridge is loaded with ready-made squashes, curd in a hundred small bowls and lots of buttermilk.

Yogurt features a lot in summer cuisine. A mor – kuzhambu (or pulissery as its known in Kerala) is one way of using up excess yogurt. You can add a whole lot of varieties of vegetables to it, I have used raw bananas here. You can use slightly ripe bananas, ripe mangoes, yam, ash gourd, pumpkins or a combination of these.

Serves : 2-3

Ingredients:

• Raw bananas (or vegetables of your choice)  :         2 cups, diced
• Yogurt                                                                    :          1.5 cups
• Turmeric Powder                                                 :         1/4 tsp
• Salt

To grind:

• Coconut grated                                    : 1/2 cup
• Green Chilies                                       :  2
• Jeera                                                      :  1/2 tsp

For tempering:

• Oil                                                         :   1-2 tsp
• Mustard seeds                                    :   1 tsp
• Fenugreek seeds                                :    1 tsp
• Red chilies                                           :     2
• Curry leaves                                        :    5-6

Method:

1. In a pan, add the diced banana pieces. Add water till the vegetables submerge, turmeric powder and salt. Cook until vazhakka is soft when touched. Don’t over cook, though.
2. Grind the coconut with chilies and jeera. Once the vegetable is cooked, add this paste to it and bring it to a boil. Cook for 2-3 minutes. You may have to add water if there isn’t enough in the pan.
3. In the same mixie jar, blend the yogurt for a few seconds. You can do this in a bowl too using a ‘mathu’ or whisk. Basically you need to break the yogurt so that no lumps remain.
4. Add this to the boiling curry and let it cook for a minute in low heat until it reaches the boiling point. You will have to stir to avoid the yogurt from splitting/curdling.
5. Take the pan off the heat once it reaches boiling point. Even if the pan sits in the hot stove, yogurt might split.
6. In a small tadka pan, heat the oil and add the red chilies and mustard seeds. Once the seeds crackle, add the fenugreek seeds and curry leaves. Once it turns brown, take off the heat and add to the pulissery.
7. Serve with rice and a side dish.

Check out the recipes from other participants for this month’s 30 day marathon in the Blogging Marathon page.