I recently went to an Indian Restaurant near me called Vaigai and I enjoyed a South Indian Beet Dish called Beet Poriyal. I never had beet poriyal before and didn’t know how to make it so I looked up a few recipes for it. I thought Dassana Amit’s recipe of www.VegRecipesofIndia.com sounded the most delicious of the recipes I found so I sort of followed along…but made just two changes. One I wanted another vegetable in it besides beets so I thought onion would be ok since the dish is savory. I didn’t have urad dal……so I looked it up and it was described as an Indian Lentil that is used for it’s earthy flavor so I substituted pink lentils but tripled the amount because I didn’t think the pink lentils would be as flavorful. Anyway it came out delicious…….This dish uses two hard to come by ingredients. One was called asafoetida. They sell it in tiny green boxes at Whole Foods and I bet you can find it at the Asiana Market. The other ingredient I happened to have was curry leaves…..I buy them and keep them in my freezer. I think if you leave out the asafetida out your dish it will NOT have the right flavor.

Ingredients for around 4 servings

2 Tablespoons coconut oil

1 lb beets – peeled – cubed

1/2 large sweet onion – cubed

1 hot pepper – (today I used a chili guero and it was just right) – chopped

12 curry leaves fine chopped (this herb is controversial and some people use it like bay leaves and remove when done….. I fine chopped because I felt the dish needed the flavor and the Indian Cook on Food Network chops and puts curry leaves in dishes so it’s ok!)

1 teaspoon black mustard seeds

1 Tablespoon lentils (or the real recipe calls for 1 teaspoon urad dal)

good pinch asafetida

salt to taste

1/3 cup water

4 Tablespoons grated coconut

Directions

Get a pot on medium heat with the coconut oil and the black mustard seeds. Heat till you hear the seeds popping and then add lentils, pepper and onion. Cook till onion is soft. Add curry leaves, asafetida, beets and water. Cover with foil and cook till beets are tender. Top with coconut. (add salt to taste)

Enjoy!

A special Thanks! to Dassana Amit of www.VegRecipesofIndia.com for sharing a delicious recipe!