Olan Recipe / How to Make Kerala Olan / Onam Sadya Recipe / Onam and Vishu Sadya Recipes / Kerala Olan Recipe / Pumpkin and Red Beans in Coconut Milk.
My previous post was on Kalan , a yummy festival dish for Kerala Sadya which has coconut and yogurt as a base. I thought of posting Olan as my next post as both words, kalan and olan sound similar and both are unavoidable dishes of Kerala sadya / feast. This is one of the dishes for the vegetarian marriages also!! Those who attend vegetarian marriages know it better than me!!
You can check my other Kerala Sadya Recipes also, where you will find amazing Sadya Recipes.
Black Eyed Beans or Cow peas and Ash Gourd (Kumbalanga) or Yellow or White Pumpkin (Mathanga) are used to make this dish. I didn’t get ash gourd though I prefer to make it with ash gourd. One can use even both to make this traditional Olan recipe. I learned this recipe also from my same neighbour Stephy from whom I learned Kalan recipe too. Thanks to Stephy for this recipe which I started making quite often after that. Yes, I fell in love with this dish, I can say. Olan is prepared with coconut oil and you get an awesome fragrance while you mix the seasoning into the curry. The end product is a thick and creamy, wow; it tastes so good with hot steaming rice!!
It is so simple to prepare and when I prepared it for the first time itself we all loved it so much.
Wish you a Happy Vishu in advance!!
You may be interested in viewing the other Onam Sadya Recipes of this blog Seenas Food Basket.
Cooking Time: 20 minutes
Total Time: 30 minutes
Serves: 6 persons
Ingredients for Making Olan:
Black Eyed Beans (Vanpayar) – ½ cup
Yellow Pumpkin – 2cups
Green Chilliy – 2 nrs., (slit lengthwise)
Thin Coconut Milk – ½ cups
Thick Coconut Milk – 1 cup
Salt – to taste
Coconut Oil – 2 tbsp.
Mustard Seeds – 1 tsp.
Curry Leaves – 2 sprigs
Water – as needed
How to Make Kerala Olan:
Soak the black eyed red beans overnight. On the next day, wash and drain it. Pressures cook the beans with little water and salt on high flame, then reduce the flame and wait for another couple of whistles. Turn off the stove.
Peel the pumpkin into small cubes. Cook the pumpkin with salt and green chillies in ½ cup of water. When it is almost done, add the thin coconut milk and cook until it is done. Add the cooked beans to the pumpkin and cook it again for another couple of minutes.
Pour in thick coconut milk and simmer it for another couple of minutes. Keep stirring, otherwise it tends to curdle fast. Turn off the flame and remove from the stove.
Season the curry by heating oil, then adding mustard seeds, when it cracks, add shallots. When it turns golden brown, add curry leaves. Pour this to the dish and mix well. Keep the curry covered for some time, so that the pumpkin and red beans absorb all the flavours.
Kerala Olan is now ready to be served.
My Recipe Notes and Tips on Kerala Olan Recipe:
1. If you do not soak beans overnight, you can soak it in the boiled water for one hour.
2. Don’t overcook the pumpkin and red beans to hold its shape. I soaked beans overnight and pressure cooked it for four whistles. I have reduced the flame to low medium after the first whistle. Then 2 more whistles are enough as I have soaked it overnight.
3. I didn’t use the stock of the beans to prepare the curry as it makes the dish reddish. Drain the stock and use it to make another yummy sauce. My Mom makes the red beans stock as a sauce after seasoning it and adding different spices. It tastes awesome with steamed rice.
4. Once you pressure cook beans, keep it closed till the pressure drops on its own.
5. If you are not using pressure cooker for cooking beans, cook the beans until it is soft, but not mushy.
6. You can even cook olan in water instead of second coconut milk, but making olan in the second coconut milk will definitely enhance its taste.
7. I used home made coconut milk this time, so have taken the first coconut milk which is thick and second coconut milk which is thin. Make homemade coconut milk by adding two cups of luke warm water to the shredded coconut and squeezing it well through the colander or even you can use a blender to do the same work. Make the second extract of coconut milk by using 4 cups of water again to the already squeezed coconut and do the same procedure once again.
8. After adding the thick coconut milk, put it in simmer as it tends to curdle.
9. Olan tends to get thick after some time, so adjust the consistency accordingly while you make .
Happy Cooking and enjoy Olan..
Pictorial of Kerala Olan:
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Serve Olan.. 
Cheers..
Seena..
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കേരള ഓലൻ റെസിപ്പി.
Kerala Sadya Olan.
Description
Kerala Sadya Olan Recipe - Kerala’s delicious and mildly spiced coconut based feast recipe, Olan.