Long Green Chilies Curry ~ Mirchi Curry

I love mirupakaya koora or green chilies curry. There are many variations of this curry and I already posted one green chilies curry that my mom makes. Today’s recipe is slightly different from that. In this recipe onion and tomatoes are ground to paste along with sesame seeds and dry coconut to make the stuffing. Onion stuffing is stuffed into chilies and then cooked to make this curry.

This is my mother-in-law’s recipe. She wrote all the recipes she collected over the years in a dairy. This recipe is from that dairy. Her recipe doesn’t have the quantities for the ingredients, just the required ingredients and the procedure. I added the quantities as per my taste.

I used long green chilies we get in the Indian store, the ones used to make mirchi bajji (fritters). If the Indian green chilies are not available, long hot peppers can be used. I wanted to do this post in January but could not post it. So here it is.

Source: Mother-in-law’s recipe collection
Total Time: 22 – 30 minutes
Preparation: 10 – 15 minutes
Cooking Time: 12 – 15 minutes
Serves: 2-3

Ingredients

• 10 Long Green Chilies or approximately 150 grams(the ones we get in Indian store and the ones used for mirchi bajji. Long hot peppers can also be used. Check notes)
• ½ cup chopped Onion
• ½ cup chopped Tomatoes
• 2 tbsp. chopped Dry Coconut
• 2 tbsp. roasted Sesame Seeds
• 1 ½ tsp. Coriander Powder
• 1 tsp. Salt(adjust to taste)
• 1 tsp. Chili Powder (adjust to taste)
• ¼ tsp. Turmeric
• 2 tbsp. Oil
• 1 ½ tsp. Ginger Garlic paste

Preparation:

1. Wash the green chilies, make a slit vertically and remove the seeds using a fork or a spoon. I used my fingers to deseed the chilies but if one has a sensitive skin, please do not use your fingers. Also, please wash your hands immediately after removing the seeds. I didn’t remove all the seeds as we like spicy hot curry. If one’s heat tolerance level is very low, please remove all the seeds.
2. Chop the onions and tomatoes and make a paste. Take it in a bowl and keep it aside.
3. In a spice grinder, grind coconut and sesame seeds to fine powder. Add this powder to the onion tomato paste.
4. Add chili powder, salt, turmeric and coriander powder to the onion paste, and mix well.
5. Steps 2-4 can be done in one step by taking all the ingredients into a wet grinder and making a paste. My wet grinder is small and chose to make the paste and powders separately and then mix everything together.
6. Lightly stuff each chili with the stuffing, about ½ – 1 ½ tsp. of filling per chili, depending on the length of the chili. I had some very long chilies and some medium length chilies. After stuffing the chilies, cut each chili into two pieces. This cutting the chilies into two pieces is not a must but I did it as the chilies were very long. You will have some leftover stuffing and keep it aside.
7. Heat oil in a non-stick pan and add the remaining onion stuffing, ginger garlic paste, and sauté for 1 – 2 minutes. You need not fry the onion for too long.
8. Add the stuffed chilies and mix well to coat the onion paste.
9. Cover and cook on medium heat for 2- 3 minutes. By this time my onion stuffing was burning so I reduce the flame to medium low and cooked it covered for another 4-5 minutes, stirring it in between. It is important to stir it to evenly cook the chilies and also for evenly roasting the onion stuffing.
10. Remove the cover. By now the chilies and onion paste will be nicely roasted. In fact, the onion paste will be kind of dry and crumbly. Reduce the flame to low, add ¼ cup of water and mix well. Increase the flame back to medium low and cook for 3-4 for minutes or until required consistency of the curry is reach. I wanted the curry to be dry but not too dry either. If one wants gravy like consistency, add more water. I like the chili curry dry.
11. Serve it with rice.

Suggestions:

• Green Chilies – Pick thick/fat chilies as it would be easy to remove the seeds and stuff it. Also depending one one’s heat tolerance level, remove the seeds. I usually keep some seeds as we like it hot.
• Long green chilies can be substituted with long hot peppers that we get in American store. We also get these in Indian stores too. I prefer green chilies to long hot peppers. Hot peppers are more fibrous and have thick skin. In the above recipe, green chilies can be substituted with 6-7 long hot peppers. Also, it needs to be cooked a little longer. After cooking it for 2-3 minutes, add water, cover and then cook it until done.
• Roasted gram ~ daliya ~ putnalu can also be added to make the stuffing. You can add about 2-3 tsp. putnalu to and make a powder along with the sesame seeds and coconut.
• Gram flour or roasted gram (daliya or putnalu) powder can be substituted with sesame seeds. However, I personally like sesame seeds.

This day in 2009: Tomato Rasam
This day in 2011: Val Rice
Recipes I posted this month in 2009, in 2010, in 2011 in 2012 and in 2013.
Events: Linking this to Fabulous Feast Friday, a linky party started by Mireille. This weekend Mireille is hosting edition # 5 along with her co-host Sandhya. This is also my entry for this week’s Cooking from Cookbook Challenge.