Koottu curry - Chick peas and mixed vegetables

The Kairali sisters' e-book contains two types of koottu curry - one spicy version and the other sweet version. I actually liked ingredients from both and kind of combined it into my own version. I loved it the way it turned out. I intended to add chena(yam) into this as per the recipe, but I realized that I ran out of it by using it in the other dishes. So I replaced it with Chembu(taro) and it still tasted divine!

Ingredients:

· 1 cup Black Chickpeas, soaked in water for at least 3 hours
· ½ cup Plantain(Pachakkaya) cut into chickpea sized pieces
· ½ cup Elephant Yam(Chena)/Chembu(Taro) cut into cut into chickpea sized pieces
· 1 medium Carrot, cubed
· ½ cup grated Coconut
· 4-5 pearl Onions, skinned
· ½ tsp Turmeric powder
· 2 tsp red Chilly powder
· ¼ cup Sarkara/Jaggery
· Few Curry leaves
· Few dry Coconut chunks(Thenga kothu)
· 1 tbsp Coconut oil
· ½ tspMustard seeds
· ½ tsp Cumin seeds
· Salt as required
· 2 dried red chillies
· ½ tsp black pepper or pepper powder
· 1 tbsp Oil

Method:

1. Cook the Chickpeas with Water and Salt until soft (Use a pressure cooker to
cook fast, or soak in boiling water for at-least 8 hours).
2. In a thick bottomed vessel, cook the Plantain and Yam/Taro, Carrots with enough Water to
just cover the Vegetables.
3. Add Turmeric powder and Salt.
4. Keep the vessel covered to prevent drying out.
5. When the vegetables are soft add the cooked Chickpeas, along with some of the
Water used to cook Chickpeas.
6. Adjust Salt, ¾ tsp Turmeric powder, 2 tsp Chilly powder and ¼ cup of Jaggery.
6. In another pan slightly fry the grated Coconut, cumin, black Pepper with the pearl Onions.
Coarse grind this mixture and add to the cooked Chickpeas.
7. Mix well and let the Water evaporate. Splutter the Mustard seeds in Coconut Oil
and then add the dried Chillies and dry Coconut chunks (Thenga Kothu).
8. Pour this over the prepared Koottu curry.