Cabbage Thoran Recipe
A typical Kerala dish with cabbage, coconut, and basic spices. Thoran is an important part of Onam sadya and as well as an every day dish.
Ingredients
- 3 cups finely chopped cabbage
- 1/2 cup grated coconut thawed, if frozen
- 1-2 green chillies minced
- 1/2 tsp cumin seeds
- 1/4 cup shallots or red onion minced
- 1/4 tsp turmeric powder
- A few curry leaves
- 2 teaspoons coconut oil
- 1/4 teaspoon black mustard seeds
Instructions
- Add cabbage, coconut, green chillies, shallots or onion, turmeric powder, salt, curry leaves and cumin seeds to a bowl or plate and mix well
- Heat oil in a pan and add mustard seeds
- When they start to pop, add the cabbage mixture to the pan, and stir well to combine with the oil
- Bring the ingredients together and create a tight 'mountain', patting it all down firmly
- Cook covered on very low heat for about 5 minutes or so.
- You shouldn't need to stir this mixture but you can 1-2 times if you are nervous about the vegetables burning
- Check to see if the cabbage is soft yet not mushy. That's how you know you are done
- Give everything one more mix, adjust salt as needed, and remove from heat
- Your cabbage thoran is ready. Easy right?
Notes
- You can use red chilli powder in place of green chillies in cabbage thoran
- You can mix 2-2 vegetables together to make thoran - eg, beans, cabbage, carrot, spinach, etc
- Just ensure all vegetables are cut in similar size and their cooking times are taken into consideration. Carrot, for eg, will take longer to cook than cabbage
- You can saute the cabbage and cook it in the traditional way too, to make thoran. This method above is how Amma taught me to make cabbage thoran and it works because cabbage cooks very easily, especially when cut as small as we do for thoran