Keerai Kadaiyal in Clay Pot

Name: Keerai Kadaiyal in Clay Pot
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 20 min
Total time: 30 min
Yield: 4
Ingredients: Spinach (I used the regular spinach, you can any other spinach variety - 10 oz pack 1); Oil - 2 tsps; Mustard seeds - 1 tsp; Cumin Seeds - 1 tsp; Turmeric Powder - a pinch; Salt - 1 tsp; Pepper Powder - 1/2 tsp; Red chillies - 3

Apr 13, 2016 · 42 Comments

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Keerai kadaiyal is yet another signature recipe of Tamil Nadu cuisine and I wanted to try this in clay pot / Manchatti as we say in Tamil. I went with regular spinach that we get here in US (pasalai keerai) but this can be prepared with any greens that you get. It is a simple steamed spinach which is then mashed with Thayir Mathu / Buttermilk churner (see notes below) and tempered with spices. I am super glad that the Indian stores here started to carry Thandu keerai / Amaranth leaves and also Manathakkali leaves/garden huckleberry.

Our friend JV uses clay pot and she was suggesting the same to me too and I couldn’t find them at amazon but luckily found them here and ordered it right away. This is the penultimate recipe that I prepared for this A-Z challenge. (Between I am still a novice in photography. The steam photographs intrigued me a lot and tried in this recipe. All the steam became blurry and I got a some what decent one and that’s my featured. ahem ahem.. I can hear you laughing.. Any tip for steam photography would be helpful)

Clay Pots:

Clay pots or Manchatti is made out of earthen clay. We all know clay is porous meaning it has lots of tiny holes and that property of clay provides the unique characteristics for the clay pots. As they are porous, they retain the moisture during the cooking process. It reduces the acidity of the foods and also their inert property (chemically inactive) makes them not to react with foods. But before using the clay pot you need to process them and make it suitable for cooking and stove top. I just followed the instructions given in the package, but pretty much all the clay pots follow the same.

Wash them first with Luke warm water with mild soap and rinse it well.
Then soak them in water or fill the clay pot with rice stock or water and leave it overnight.
The next day remove the water, wipe it dry and apply coconut oil all over the pot and keep on stove top and heat the empty clay pot under medium heat for 5 minutes.
Once it is cooled down, add water or rice stock again and leave it overnight.
Repeat steps 2 to 4 for four days.

So here is the super simple, humble and healthy recipe, (both turmeric and pepper powder are used for killing any germs, in Tamil we say kirumi naasani)

Ingredients:

Spinach (I used the regular spinach, you can any other spinach variety) – 10 oz pack 1
Oil – 2 tsps
Mustard seeds – 1 tsp
Cumin Seeds – 1 tsp
Turmeric Powder – a pinch
Salt – 1 tsp
Pepper Powder – 1/2 tsp
Red chilies – 3

Steps:

Clean and chop the spinach.

Heat the clay pot and once it is hot add the oil.
Once the oil is hot, add the mustard seeds, cumin seeds, hing.
As they start to splutter, reduce the heat to medium and break the red chillies and add it to the same.

Fry for a minute and then add the spinach. (As my clay pot was small, I added half of the spinach and covered it for 2 minutes and then added the remaining half)

Cover and cook for 2 minutes.
Now add the turmeric powder, salt and pepper powder.

Cover and cook again for 3 to 4 minutes.

Now using the butter milk churner or matthu, mash the spinach nicely.

Cook till all the water evaporates or if you want to be like gravy, add 1 cup of water and mash it again and as it starts to boil turn the heat off.

Notes:

For this quantity, we can add 4 to 5 shallots for additional taste.
Mashed moog dal can be added like kootu.
Adjust the red chillies and salt according to your preference.
As I couldn’t find spinach masher/mathu I went with buttermilk churner / thayir mathu.