Opo Squash, Zucchini, and Pumpkin in a light sauce

There is something about the combination of delicate almost watery Opo Squash with meaty semi-sweet pumpkin that I find irresistible. This probably stems from consuming a lot of Olan, a South Indian delicacy that is my mom's specialty.

We had harvested some zucchini and pumpkin from our home-garden and the combination of these reminded me of my mom's Olan very much, especially along with Opo Squash.

The kids don't enjoy it much - they'll take a bite to satisfy me and because we made it a rule to try the dish, grimaces and nose-wrinkling notwithstanding, every time I put something in front of them.

It is the simplicity of this dish that I find reflects the inherent qualities of the vegetables - no rich curry, no strong spices, just simple flavors. Of course, feel free to experiment and adjust/add flavors to taste, as always. Instead of pumpkin, can use any mildly sweet winter squash like butternut or acorn squash.

While similar to my Olan recipes, this recipe can me made into a thin soup with vegetables chopped up tinier, and using chicken stock instead of vegetable, if preferred. [Incidentally, looking back at my very old recipes, gosh! what terrible pictures! I must update them with better ones soon :)]

Ingredients
½ Opo Squash, peeled, cored, and diced
1 medium zucchini,  cored and diced
As much pumpkin  or winter squash as preferred, diced or cut into chunks
Additional vegetables: cauliflower, broccoli, Chinese long green beans (optional)
vegetable stock, enough to cook the veggies
¼ to ½ cup plain low-fat milk (for a richer, slightly different flavor, can use light coconut-milk)
spices: freshly ground black pepper, turmeric
1 Tbsp coconut oil (or any other preferred oil)

Preparation

1. Heat the coconut oil in a pan, add the turmeric, then vegetables and stock, cover and simmer till vegetables are cooked but not mushy; I like the smell and flavor of coconut oil in this dish as I use milk instead of coconut-milk to finish
2. When water is all but absorbed and veggies are cooked, turn off heat,  stir in ground black pepper and milk, adjust flavors. The amount of milk depends on how runny we want the finished dish to be. For a soupy consistency, add more, naturally.
3. Garnish with cilantro and spring onions if preferred and serve warm with brown basmati rice, or plain cooked quinoa, or roti; or enjoy it as-is.

Olan version 2

Olan is a traditional dish my mom makes. A while ago I shared my olan recipe which is closer to the traditional one...

This olan recipe is an adaptation of my mom's recipe in that I added a few ingredients that are not quite traditional, and adjusted the flavors to suit D's taste better.

Ingredients
veggies for olan: snake beans, kabocha squash (or any sweet yellow squash like butternut or acorn), baby corn, opo squash or ash gourd, canned green jackfruit
about 4 or 5 cups of chopped veggies in all
also:
1 cup coconut milk
1 cup whole milk(maybe more)
salt
1 Tbsp cumin powder
2 Tbsp coriander powder
½ tsp turmeric powder
1-2 green chilies (slit lengthwise)
4-5 curry leaves (reserve some for garnish)
4 Tbsp coconut oil

Preparation

chop the vegetables to fairly uniform chunks and cook them individually with a pinch of salt till tender but not mushy; canned green jackfruit and canned baby corn don't really need to be cooked

heat oil in a pan, add the curry leaves and slit green chilies, sauté a bit, then add the cooked veggies, coconut milk, turmeric powder, cumin and coriander powders, and adjust salt to taste; simmer gently till flavors meld

add the milk, a little at a time; stir gently till well incorporated, on low heat, so milk doesn't curdle; add enough milk to submerge the vegetables

off heat garnish with some of the reserved curry leaves and green chilies

serve warm with rice or roti

Olan

Olan is a dish from Kerala state in India. As I don't get the 'elavan' and 'mathan' which are the primary vegetables, I substitute with Opo Squash for elavan and either butternut or acorn squash for matthan and the taste is sort of close and pretty good.



I find that opo squash (aka bottle gourd) and foo gwa are readily available in most asian stores pretty much year round; and we have a bunch of butternut and blue hubbard and sweetmeat squashes growing in our backyard this year which is sort of handy for this dish.

Basically, I look for a neutral flavored whitish squash/gourd and a sweetish yellow colored squash for this dish.

Ingredients
2 cups peeled, cored, diced opo squash (can substitute ash gourd)
2 cups peeled, cored, diced butternut squash (or, use acorn/danish squash)
2 cups chopped snake beans - cut into 1" long pieces
5-6 green chilies, slit lengthwise (less if you don't want the heat)
1 tsp turmeric powder
2 Tbsp coconut oil
1/2 cup coconut milk
1/4 cup whole milk
salt to taste
water as needed, for steaming veggies

Preparation

1. heat 1 Tbsp coconut oil in a pan
2. add the snake beans and a couple of tablespoons of water, cover and let it cook till partially done (snake beans take longer to cook than opo and butternut squashes)
3. add the diced opo and butternut squash, 1 tsp salt, turmeric, coconut milk; cover and cook till squash is tender and cooked but not mushy
4. turn down the heat, add milk and slit green chilies, stir and simmer for a few minutes till well incorporated; adjust salt to taste
5. off heat stir in the rest of the coconut oil and serve warm with rice or chapathi