| Prep Time | 10 minutes |
| Cook Time | 10 minutes |
| Servings |
people
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- 4 medium Taro root Try to get uniformly sized ones, and not too big ones
- 1 tbsp Salt reduce if you're not too fond of salt, my food tends to be saltier
- 1 tbsp chili powder reduce or replace with Kashmiri chili powder which is more color and less heat
- 1/2 tsp Hing/asafoetida
- 1 sprig Curry leaves
- 4-6 tbsp oil
- 1/2 tsp turmeric
- 1 tsp Mustard seeds For seasoning/tempering
Ingredients
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- Cook the taro root till it's fork-tender, but not overcooked. I pressure cook it in steam (meaning there's no water added) for about 8 minutes, the same time it takes to cook white rice. I keep rice in the bottom of the cooker, put a plate on it, and keep the taro on the plate. If cooking in microwave, you might have to cook it in water, and check every few minutes to make sure it's not overcooked.
- After they cool, peel them, and chop into small pieces
- Add the salt, chili powder, curry leaves, and hing, and a few drops of oil and mix with a spoon or shake with a lid on, to evenly coat the taro pieces with the spices
- Heat oil in a kadai/vaanali, and splutter the mustard seeds
- Add the taro mixture, and fry on low to medium heat, turning every few minutes so they crisp evenly. About 8 minutes
- Take off the heat. Serve with rice, any dal/sambar, or rasam
Taro is a root vegetable, (colocasia esculenta) and is easily found in Indian grocery stores. They're not the prettiest to look at, but are a considered healthy.
Taro contains three times as much fiber as a potato, is a great source of potassium and is a low glycemic index food. It's also is very easy to digest. The glycemic index measures how your blood sugar levels rise after you eat carbohydrates.
I love how the leaves of this plant look.
Taro is cooked and a staple in many parts of the globe, and is the basis for the famous staple poi made in Hawaii.
Traditionally, after coating with spices, the taro pieces would be deep fried in batches. That's an unbeatably good recipe, but in the interest of health, I shallow fry all of them in one batch, and with much much less oil.
If you are making in a large quantity, a wide and flat pan, not a curved one, would work best, so they don't crowd and get mushy.
This dish goes amazingly well with any south indian sambar/rasam, more kuzhambu (kadhi), dal, kootu, yogurt rice, you name it!