Parangikai Errisserry

It's Halloween season here and the markets are full of pumpkins. I had bought a small piece, a few days back and was looking for something different to do with it. That's when I came across the popular Kerala dish - Errissery. I tried the dish today. It came out well. But I'm not so sure if this is what an Errisserry should taste like. I'm hoping to give to some of my Keralite friends and get their feedback :) In the meantime, I'm sharing the recipe here. (Whatever it is, it tasted good).

Ingredients

Pumpkin (parangikai) - 1 1/2 cups diced into small cubes of around a cm wide
Shredded Coconut - 1/4 cup
Red chillies - 7-8 (depends on your spice level)

Cumin seeds (jeeragam) - 1 tsp
Salt - as per taste
Turmeric powder - around 1/2 tsp
Mustard seeds - 1 tsp
Curry leaves - for garnishing
Coconut oil or any other cooking oil

Method

1. Boil the pumpkin with around 3/4 cups of water along with salt and turmeric powder.
2. Fry the shredded coconut, red chillies and cumin (you can add a very small amount of oil) till the coconut is reddish. Grind this mixture into a thick paste.
3. Once the vegetable has cooked well, add the ground mixture to it. Add some water to it if required (take care not to make it too watery). Allow this mixture to boil well, letting the masala blend with the vegetables.
4. Fry some mustard seeds and curry leaves and add to the dish. You can also add some coconut oil to the dish to give it a nice flavour and smell.
5. The dish is ready to be served :)

We had a nice lunch today with this Errisserry, Paruppu thuvaiyal, Rice, tapioca curry and curd. The Errissery tasted good when mixed with rice. It was also a good combination with the thuvaiyal and curd rice.