R063Cabbage Thoran
The master thoran: shredded cabbage, crushed coconut, turmeric
Recipes › Vegetables: The Half of the Plate
R065
Cheera Thoran
Amaranth greens with coconut and crushed garlic
Photograph: Adobe Stock · representative of the dish
The re-engineeringOil at 8 g instead of the usual 20–25 g, and the greens cooked uncovered from the start rather than stewed under a lid, which is what turns a bright cheera thoran into a dark wet one.
Cheera is the everyday green of Kerala backyards, and it behaves like no other vegetable in this chapter: 600 g of it becomes about 400 g in four minutes and gives up an alarming amount of water. That water is the whole difficulty. Cook it uncovered, over a flame higher than feels right, and stop while the stems still have some resistance. Garlic goes into this crush where it does not into the others, because amaranth's mineral, slightly metallic note wants it.
Before you start: Wash and dry the greens well ahead — at least 20 minutes in a colander, or spun in a salad spinner. Wet leaves add water the dish cannot afford, and this is the single biggest cause of a soggy cheera thoran.
Cheera Thoran
Active 20 minutes Total 25 minutes
Scale
4 servings
Ingredients — tap to tick off
- ✓600 g (about 2 large bunches) green amaranth, leaves and tender stems, washed, dried and chopped 1 cm
- ✓50 g (⅔ cup) freshly grated coconut
- ✓40 g (about 4) shallots, roughly chopped
- ✓8 g (1–2) green chillies, roughly chopped
- ✓5 g (2 cloves) garlic
- ✓1.5 g (¼ tsp) ground turmeric
- ✓2 g (½ tsp) salt, or M07
- ✓8 g (1½ tsp) coconut oil
- ✓2 g (½ tsp) mustard seed
- ✓2 g (1 sprig) curry leaves
Allergens: Mustard.
Equipment: The widest pan you own, 28 cm if possible, no lid needed; chattuvam. Substitute: a wok, which is better than a narrow saucepan. The dish fails in a small pan.
Per serving (estimated)
| Energy | 125 kcal |
| Protein | 6.0 g |
| Fibre | 8.5 g |
| Net carbohydrate | 6.4 g |
| Total carbohydrate | 14.9 g |
| Sugars | 2.5 g |
| Fat | 8.4 g |
| Saturated fat | 6.5 g |
| Sodium | 230 mg |
From ICMR-NIN IFCT 2017 and USDA FoodData Central. Per-serving figures stay the same when you scale.
Method — tap a step to mark it done, tap a time to start a timer
- Crush the coconut, shallots, chilli, garlic and turmeric coarsely. Five or six pulses; the garlic should be broken, not puréed.
- Heat the dry pan , add the oil, pop the mustard seed 20–30 seconds, then the curry leaves 5–10 seconds.
- Add the greens in two or three handfuls, letting each collapse before the next goes in, with the salt. This takes and looks impossible until it suddenly is not.
- Cook uncovered on a flame higher than you would use for any other thoran, stirring and lifting constantly, until the water the leaves release has boiled away and the pan is dry, . Do not put a lid on. If the pan floods, tip the liquid off rather than waiting for it to evaporate — it will overcook the leaf.
- Fold in the crush and cook on a low flame, until the garlic smell has turned sweet. The greens should still be a clear deep green and the stems should give a faint resistance.
Why this worksAmaranth carries 4.4 g of fibre and 2.3 g of available carbohydrate per 100 g at 31 kcal, so 150 g of it fills a third of the plate for under 50 kcal before the coconut. Cooking uncovered matters because leaf cells rupture and dump water within the first two minutes; a lid returns that water as condensate and the leaf then simmers in it, which is what makes cheera thoran taste dull.
Sourcing note
Amaranth greens are sold as cheera, thotakura, callaloo, Chinese spinach or simply amaranth in Indian, Caribbean, Chinese and African groceries, and they are one of the easiest Kerala greens to find abroad. Red amaranth works and stains everything pink. Where there is none: 600 g of spinach is the closest common substitute in texture and cooking time, though it is blander and gives even more water, so cook it 2 minutes less; 500 g of chard leaves with the stems chopped separately and started 2 minutes earlier is closer in flavour. Frozen chopped spinach works at 400 g, thawed and squeezed hard.
If you are watching…
Blood sugar: 6.4 g net carbohydrate and 8.5 g fibre per serving, which is the best fibre-to-carbohydrate ratio of any thoran here.
Blood pressure: 230 mg sodium, or about 175 mg with M07. Amaranth is naturally potassium-rich, though this book does not publish a figure for it:.
Cholesterol: 6.5 g saturated fat, essentially all of it coconut. At 25 g of coconut instead of 50 g the dish is still good — greens carry coconut better than any other vegetable — and saturated fat halves.
Swap it
Amaranth → spinach, chard, colocasia leaves or moringa leaves. See the sourcing note for timings. Colocasia leaves must be cooked through, never briefly, and are not a beginner's green.
Garlic → 20 g extra shallot. Milder and more sadya-appropriate, since temple and formal cooking excludes garlic; household cooking often does not.
Add 100 g cooked cherupayar at step 5 → the classic cheera payar thoran. Protein rises about 2.5 g per serving and it becomes a meal rather than a side.
Add 40 g grated carrot with the greens → colour and sweetness, sugars up about 1 g.
Scale it
Above four servings, cook in two batches without exception. Greens cannot be cooked dry in a crowded pan.
Make ahead · store · freeze
Eat the day it is made. Fridge 2 days, and it darkens visibly by the second. Do not freeze — thawed amaranth is a wet grey purée. Reheat in a dry pan 2–3 minutes.
Leftovers
Cold cheera thoran folded into dosa batter makes an excellent green dosa. Or blend a cupful into a dal (R060) as body and colour.
Troubleshooting
Dark, wet and sour: a lid was used, or the pan was too small. Neither is recoverable; the flavour has already gone.
Bitter or astringent: the stems were too thick and woody. Use the top third of the stem only, and compost the rest.
Gritty: amaranth grows low and holds soil in the leaf axils. Wash in three changes of water, lifting the leaves out rather than pouring the water off.
Serve with
R015 Matta Rice · R055 Kadala Ularthiyathu · R081 Moru Curry · R024 Meen Vevichathu
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