Mathanga Erissery is a quintessential dish from the Kerala cuisine, beloved for its simplicity, nutritional value, and comforting flavors. It's traditionally served as part of the Onam Sadya, a grand feast that celebrates the harvest festival of Onam, but is also enjoyed throughout the year. This dish is a beautiful blend of sweet pumpkin (mathanga) and earthy legumes, typically cowpeas (vanpayar) or red beans, cooked with a handful of spices and then smothered in a coconut paste. The finishing touch, a tempering of mustard seeds, dried red chilies, curry leaves, and sometimes grated coconut, fried in coconut oil, elevates the dish with a burst of flavor and aroma.

This is a popular dish from Kerala and is almost always prepared as part of the Sadya. The varieties of making eriseri are many and combination with different vegetables.

The most popular erisseri made are the chena (yam) and green plantain (vazhakkai),the yelllow pumpkin/mathanga erisseri.
The recipe given below is for the yellow pumpkin/mathanga.

Vishu and Onam Sadya menu will always have this dish served on the plantain leaf .

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup black eyed beans or red gram / vanpayar . pressure cooked till little soft not mushy. ( soak for 5 -6 hours prior to cooking .)

• 2-3 cups of cubed yellow pumpkin

• 1 1/2 cup fresh grated coconut, of which we will divide .

• 1 tsp jeera/cumin

• 1/2 tsp mustard seeds

• 1tsp split udad dal

• 1/2 tsp turmeric powder/haldi

• 1 tsp chilli powder,

• 3 dry red chillies for tempering .

• salt to taste

• 1 tbsp coconut oil/cooking oil

• some curry leaves

Method:

Pressure cook the red  gram / vanpayar ,  for 3 whistles till cooked well but not too mushy , as  we will add it to pumpkins to cook along more .

Cook the cubed pumpkin pieces in little water along with turmeric powder,salt,chilli powder. Half way through add the cooked red gram also . cover and cook till tender but not too mushy .

Grind to paste 1/2 cup grated coconut with cumin .

Add this ground paste to the cooked pumpkins and red gram mixture, allow to cook further for a minute .

Meanwhile prepare a tempering with 1 tbsp coconut oil , of split udad dal, mustard seeds, curry leaves, red chilies, add to this the remaining grated coconut which must be fried to almost brown in color in the coconut oil .

Add this tempering to the almost ready eriseri, , cover and keep after mixing gently after adding the tempering and fried coconut .

TIPS

For those wishing to avoid coconut of the quantity mentioned,use little for grinding to paste and skip the last step.

Usually the recipe of this kind is prepared only at the time of festival , and for daily cooking we avoid using so much coconut .

You can add some cooked toor dal, skip the coconut , and add some only at the end , at the time of tempering , this will also taste amazing .

For seasoning instead of using coconut oil you can use any other cooking oil.

Watch the youtube video for the making of this dish . Consider subscribing to my channel for more .