Kera Paalu Pastam (Coconut Milk Pasta)

This recipe won the runner-up prize in the IndiBlogger MasterChef India 2 contest ! ๐Ÿ™‚

The competition was about unique preparations and was judged by the MasterChef judges Vikas, Ajay and Kunal!

Happy! Very happy ๐Ÿ˜€

(Edited – 21-02-2012)


Pasta is something which I like a lot. I like it in the salads, soups, sauces … and when I was thinking about making some experiments last week, the first image that flashed in my mind was a bowl of pasta in white sauce.

I have a weakness for the white pasta sauce, but this time there were no butter, cheese, garlic or flour. What I used instead were –

Ingredients

Coconut Milk

Coconut Milk

Sattu

Sattu

Coconut Milk – 3 cups

Sattu – 3 teaspoon

Black Mustard Seeds – 1 teaspoon

Dry Chili – 2

Curry Leaves – 10 – 15

Chopped Green Capsicum – 1

Chopped Chicken – 1 cup

Boiled Pasta (Macaroni) – 1 cup

Chopped Chicken

Chopped Chicken

Dry Chili, Black mustard seeds, Curry Leaves

Dry Chili, Black mustard seeds, Curry Leaves

Soybean Oil (Use Coconut Oil if you are adventurous ๐Ÿ™‚ )- 2 tablespoon / 6 teaspoon

Salt to taste

Yes. A full blown South Indian Pasta! But what do we call it? I searched the internet for sometime and came to know that in Malayalam Kera means Coconut or Coconut tree and Paalu means milk (disclaimer : I do not know any of the Carnatic languages and hence if these words mean something else then please let me know. I would be happy to correct the nameย under such circumstances). And like our Payesh (Bengali rice pudding) becomesย  Payasam in Tamil, Pasta became Pastam. So the final name is now Kera Paalu Pastam ๐Ÿ™‚

After assuring our fusion will have an experimental name let us go through the procedure –

1. Boil the chopped chicken and keep aside. Keep the stock.

2. Boil the pasta with a pinch of salt and keep aside.

Chopped Green Capsicum

Chopped Green Capsicum

3. Blend the sattu in coconut milk so that there are no lumps and keep aside.

4. Put the oil in a vessel and heat it.

5. Add the black mustard seeds, dry chili, curry leaves (about 8 – 10) together and the coconut milk once the seeds start to splutter.

5. Add salt to taste.

6. Add the chopped chicken. Keep stirring until the gravy starts to dry out.

7. Add the pasta and keep stirring. Add a little chicken stock if the gravy dries out too much.

8. Garnish with rest of the curry leaves and chopped capsicum. Serve hot.

 

Kera Paalu Pastam

Kera Paalu Pastam

Believe me, it was as tasty as it looks and I liked the new pasta sauce completely ๐Ÿ˜›

10 Comments

Sumit

Hi Kusum,

Sattu or Chhatua are ground powders of pulses and cereals like horse gram (chana dal), green gram, jowar, wheat, oat, barley, etc. (From Wikipedia). It’s an Indian food consumed mainly in Bihar and Jharkhand, though not limited to that areas only.

You can try it without chicken. Also if you are a vegetarian, you can substitute chicken with small chunks of soybean ๐Ÿ™‚

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Paneer Kebab Pasta | Sumit Surai

[…] This is my fourth recipe of Indian pasta this weekend and fifth for this blog. The pasta were Kera Paalu Pastam (Coconut Milk Pasta), Stuffed Penne Pasta With Yogurt Chicken Sauce, Balle Balle Spaghetti and Pasta Malai Curry With […]

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May De Jesus-Palacpac

What a very interesting recipe! I’m not familiar with Sattu and I haven’t used Mustard seeds in cooking yet, but I’m sure I can find a place around there that sells them. Thanks for sharing!

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Janice

Congratulations on winning the runner up prize! Like you, I love pasta and have a weakness for white sauce too. ๐Ÿ™‚ This looks like a really yummy one. Don’t know where I can find sattu here though.

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