Thoran

Kerala vegetables shredded fine and tossed with grated coconut over a mustard and curry leaf tempering

Origin: Kerala, South India

From the journey of Curry Leaf.

If avial is the Kerala banquet dish, thoran is the everyday one, and there is a version of it in a Malayali kitchen most days of the week. The method is fixed and the subject is whatever is to hand. A vegetable is shredded or chopped very fine, tossed briefly with fresh grated coconut over a tempering of mustard seed and curry leaf, and cooked dry, with no water added beyond what clings to the vegetable. Cabbage, green beans, carrot, beetroot, unripe jackfruit, and the leaves of the ash gourd all take the same treatment. So do things a Western kitchen would discard: the peel of the ash gourd, the stems of amaranth, and the fibrous outer leaves. The coconut is not a sauce. It is grated fresh and stirred in near the end, sometimes crushed briefly with garlic, cumin, and green chilli in a mortar so it releases a little oil, and it coats the vegetable rather than binding it. A finished thoran is dry enough to pick up between rice and fingers. The tempering is where the curry leaf does its work, and the sequence is invariable across South India: hot oil, mustard seed waited on until it pops, split black gram until it turns gold, dried chilli, then the curry leaves, which spit hard for four or five seconds and go translucent. Everything else is built on top of that. It is the dish that teaches the technique, and a cook who can make a good thoran can make most of the South Indian vegetable repertoire.

Ingredients

Vegetable

  • 500 g cabbage, or green beans, or carrot, very finely shredded

Coconut Mix

  • 120 g fresh grated coconut
  • 2 whole green chillies
  • 3 cloves garlic
  • 0.5 tsp cumin seeds
  • 0.5 tsp ground turmeric

Tempering

  • 3 tbsp coconut oil
  • 1 tsp black mustard seeds
  • 1 tbsp split black gram (urad dal)
  • 2 whole dried red chillies, broken
  • 2 sprigs fresh curry leaves
  • 1 whole small onion or 4 shallots, finely chopped

Seasoning

  • 1 tsp salt, or to taste

Method

  1. Shred the cabbage as finely as you can, or cut the beans into 5 mm slices. Everything should be small and even.
  2. Crush the coconut, green chillies, garlic, cumin, and turmeric together briefly in a mortar, or pulse two or three times in a processor.
  3. Heat the coconut oil in a wide pan until shimmering. Add the mustard seeds and wait for them to pop properly.
  4. Add the black gram and fry until it turns golden, then the dried chillies, then the curry leaves.
  5. The curry leaves will spit hard and go translucent within four or five seconds. Add the onion immediately and cook for three minutes.
  6. Add the shredded vegetable and the salt, turn it through the tempering, cover, and cook on a medium heat for six to eight minutes.
  7. Uncover, stir in the crushed coconut mixture, and cook uncovered for a further three to four minutes.
  8. Taste for salt and serve warm with rice.

Notes

Fresh grated coconut is the right thing. Frozen grated coconut, thawed, is a good second. Desiccated coconut is dry and sweet and gives a noticeably poorer result; if you must, soak it briefly in warm water first. Almost any vegetable works. Cabbage and green beans are the commonest; beetroot gives a startling colour; unripe jackfruit and ash gourd peel are the traditional thrift versions. Split black gram (urad dal) in the tempering is not a pulse to be eaten but a texture: it fries to a nutty crunch and is scattered through the dish. It does not keep well and is made fresh. Leftovers are fine the next day but the coconut dries out. Serve as one of several dishes with rice, sambar or rasam, yoghurt, and pickle.

The Gastrographer

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