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Olan (Ash Gourd and Cowpeas in Coconut Milk)

Name: Olan (Ash Gourd and Cowpeas in Coconut Milk)
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 50 min
Total time: 1 h 5 min
Yield: 4 servings
Cuisine: Indian
Ingredients: 80 g red cowpeas; 400 g ash gourd; 100 g pumpkin; 3 green chillies; 1 tsp salt; 200 ml water; 400 ml coconut milk; 1 tbsp coconut oil; 1 sprig curry leaves

A mild Kerala stew of thinly sliced ash gourd and red cowpeas in coconut milk. There is no mustard-seed tempering, no chilli powder and no turmeric: raw coconut oil and fresh curry leaves are stirred in after the heat is off. It is one of the side dishes of the sadhya, the feast served at Onam.

Ingredients

4servings

Steps

Boil the soaked cowpeas in plenty of water 30-40 minutes until soft, then drain.
⏲ 35 min
Put the ash gourd, pumpkin, chillies, salt and the 200ml water in a pan, cover and cook 10 minutes, until the gourd turns translucent and tender.
⏲ 10 min
Stir in the cooked cowpeas.
⏲ 1 min
Pour in the coconut milk and warm it over low heat 3-4 minutes. Do not let it boil hard.
⏲ 3 min 30 sec
Turn off the heat and stir in the raw coconut oil and the curry leaves. Nothing is fried (blooming spices).
⏲ 30 sec
Cover and leave 5 minutes for the aroma to settle in, then serve with rice.
⏲ 5 min

Variations

With pumpkin. Yellow pumpkin stands in for the ash gourd.
Black-eyed peas. They stand in for red cowpeas.
At a sadhya. It goes onto the banana leaf with the other side dishes of the Kerala vegetarian feast.

Tips

Once the coconut milk is in, do not boil it hard.
Curry leaves and coconut oil go in after the heat is off.
Slice the gourd thin. It cooks quickly and turns translucent.
Mild is the point. No chilli powder, no turmeric.

More detail and the reasons why (2)

The tempering is left out on purpose. Blooming spices puts aromatics into fat first to draw out their flavour, and dal finishes with a tadka of spices fried in oil. Olan goes the other way at the same moment. The curry leaves and coconut oil are not fried but go raw into a pot that is off the heat, so what stays is the smell of fresh leaves and raw coconut rather than fried spice. The taste then rests on the coconut milk and the cowpeas.
The coconut milk is only warmed. Rendang cooks coconut milk for a long time until it reduces to a clinging glaze. Olan pours it in and only warms it, without a hard boil, so the sauce stays white and soft.