This is October preparations for the Vishu celebration must have started!!
Today I am presenting before you one of the best dishes of the Keralites named ‘Kalan’. It’s a thick creamy yogurt based side dish which is used for Kerala Sadya. This dish is a traditional dish of Malayalees and I am sure each and every malayalee loves this dish so much. One cannot avoid kalan and one similar recipe, named Olan for Kerala Sadya.
Kalan is prepared with vegetables like raw banana and yam exclusively, coconut and yogurt. Sliced raw banana or yam is cooked in salted water along with green chillies and adding flavoured coconut paste and finally doing the seasoning to give an extra touch of flavouring. We prepare pulisherry of many varieties also with yogurt as base. But in kalan, we add pepper powder unlike pulicherry and it has a thicker consistency. Here I have used both raw banana and yam on 1:1 ratio.
There are regional differences in making this Kalan Recipe dish. Very recently I fell in love with this kalan when one of my close neighbours from Kerala offered me this. It was so tasty and I asked her the recipe too. My mom never makes kalan and olan during the festival days. I don’t know why, though she prepares all other dishes which are ideally meant for the feast.
Check out my Kerala Sadya Recipes in the mean time.. 
Here goes the recipe of Kalan Recipe..
Preparation Time: 10 minutes
Cooking Time: 20 minutes
Serves: 4
Ingredients for Making Kalan:
Raw Plantain (cut into cubes) – 3
Yam (cut in to cubes) – 200 grams
Thick Sour Yogurt – 1 ½ cup
Green Chilly – 2
Chilly Powder – 1 tsp.
Turmeric Powder – 1 tsp.
Pepper Powder (fresh and ground) – ½ tsp.
Salt – to taste
Water – ½ to 1 cup.
For Grinding:
Coconut (grated) – ½ of one
Cumin Seeds – 1 tsp.
For seasoning:
Coconut Oil – 1 ½ tbsp.
Mustard Seeds – 1 tsp.
Shallots – 1 tsp.
Curry Leaves – 2 sprigs
Fenugreeks seeds powder – ¼ tsp.
How to Make Kalan
Wash, peel and cut raw banana and elephant yam in to 2” cubes.
Grind coconut and cumin to a smooth paste and keep it aside.
In a pan, add the chopped vegetables and cook it by adding salt, turmeric powder, pepper powder and ½ cup of water.
When the yam is half done, add raw banana cubes and cook till it is done and the water is completely evaporated.
Now add the coconut paste and mix it well. Cook for about two minutes.
Keep the flame to lowest and add the yogurt and mix well. Simmer it for a minute and turn off the heat.
In another pan, do the seasoning with the ingredients listed under ‘for seasoning’.
Pour this seasoning over the kalan and cover it with it’s lid to get all the flavores infused in to it.
Kalan is now ready to be served.
Serve hot with rice and other side dishes or as a part of sadya.
My Recipe Notes and Tips on Kalan Recipe:
1. Adjust spices according to your taste.
2. You can make this dish either with raw banana or with yam. Here I have used both!! 
3. You can pressure cook banana and yam, but I prefer to cook it in a pot as it tends to get mushy in the pressure cooker.
4. It is a must that this dish needs sour yogurt to get its authentic taste. If your yogurt is not sour, add some drops of lemon juice in to it and keep it in the room temperature for a couple of hours ahead of preparing this kalan to make it sour!!
5. While adding yogurt put in sim to avoid the yogurt getting curdled.
6. You can add one broken red chilly while doing seasoning for this Kalan Recipe.
Happy cooking!!
Pictorial of Kalan Recipe:
Ingredients for making Kalan Recipe
Serve it.. 
Happy Cooking,
Cheers,
Seena.
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കേരള കാളൻ റെസിപ്പി.
Kalan Recipe for Kerala Sadya.
Description
Learn how to make Kalan, which is a thick creamy yogurt based side dish, used for Kerala Sadya.