Amaranth has been used in cuisine since centuries because of it’s nutritional values and today many of them have developed liking towards this veggie as it’s packed with protein. There are mainly two varieties like green and red amaranth leaves. Though both taste more or less same, red amaranth makes the dish colorful.
Backyard vegetable garden with red amaranth leaves
At my home my father grows this veggie in backyard garden twice every year. It is organically grown without any chemical fertilizer and cooks faster, tastes 100 times better than store bought ones. The leaves along with tender stems are perfect for stir fry, curry and sasmi. The stems when they become more mature can be used in stand alone curry.
Basically red amaranth leaves taste bland, so while cooking you make sure that all tastes are fairly balanced in it. Unlike cabbage stir fry or bottle gourd stirfry recipes, I have added tamarind extract and rasam powder to this red amaranth leaves stirfry making it more appetizing. Here goes the recipe.
Red amaranth leaves stirfry recipe
Ingredients
- Fresh red amaranth leaves- 1 bunch
- Turmeric powder- 1/2 tsp
- Salt- 1 tsp
- Jaggery- 1 tsp
- Tamarind- Small gooseberry sized
- Udupi rasam powder- 1 tsp
- Grated coconut- 1 tsp
Seasoning ingredients
- Cooking oil- 3 tsp
- Mustard seeds- 1/2 tsp
- Split black gram lentil- 1/2 tsp
- Curry leaves- few
- Broken red chilly- 1 no.
Instructions
Preparation
- Wash thoroughly red amaranth leaves under tap water and chop them finely. Include tender stems as well which gives maximum benefits of veggie. Keep it aside.
- Soak tamarind in water enough to immerse it for about 15 minutes. Extract it's thick juice discarding the residue.
Method
- Heat a wok/kadai adding all the seasoning ingredients in the order mentioned, let mustard seeds to pop up. Then add chopped red amaranth leaves and little(1/4 cup) water.
- Add salt, jaggery and turmeric powder. Give a quick stir and let it cook in low flame with lid covered.
- When the red amaranth leaves and stem are soft, include tamarind extract, rasam powder and grated coconut. Mix well. Put off the flame.
- Red amaranth leaves stir fry is ready. Best side dish with rice or rice-rasam.
Note
- Do not add excess water to cook the leaves. It gets cooked fast with just little water, volume too reduces when cooked.
- To make the stir fry more spicy, add few green chillies.
- Do not skip rasam powder, that itself gives unique flavor and taste to the stirfry.
Meet you all with one more interesting recipe. Till then bye.
