This mixed vegetable curry with aubergines, vaal papdi or valor and fenugreek used to be a favourite of my parents. These three vegetables are considered healthy as they are low in carbohydrates. My dad was a diabetic so this curry was made regularly in our home. When I was young, I wasn’t too keen on this curry as the taste of fenugreek takes a bit of getting used to. Now I really enjoy this curry.
Vaal Papdi beans are botanically classified as Dolichos lablab. I love these beans but don’t often get them as they require quite a lot of topping and tailing and removing the stringy fibre from each bean – very similar to fresh peas or valor. More information about the vaal papdi and the various names it’s called can be found here. This vaal papdi is a lot different from Vaal which are actually from the valor plant. Vaal beans too make a great curry but it’s more like a lentil curry compared to this green vegetable curry.
To clean and prepare the Vaal papdi, you cut the top and bottom stalks and the stringy part holding the two stalks. Once the stringy part is removed, divide the Vaal papdi into two or three small pieces just by breaking them by hand. Both the green outer cover and the seeds are used in the curry. Fresh vaal papdi doesn’t take long to cook and is often cooked on it’s own, with aubergine and fenugreek like I have done in this recipe or added to the mixed vegetable Gujarati curry called undhiyu.
Once you have cleaned and washed the vaal papdi, you can even freeze it if you have bought extra.
Fenugreek is a herb and it’s seeds are often used by mums as home remedies. The fenugreek seeds are ground and added to special sweets made for nursing mums as its helps with breast milk production. New mums are also fed this curry with extra fresh fenugreek as it’s got lots of herbal goodness. They are also added to oil during the tempering of curries. More information about the goodness of fenugreek is here.
In this curry, I have used the fresh green fenugreek but you can also use frozen fenugreek for this recipe. When using fresh fenugreek, use all the leaves and part of the fresh stems too as they are full of flavour and goodness. If you have not used fresh fenugreek then watch this video to see how to prepare it ready to wash and use.
You can use any aubergines. The big aubergines sold in the supermarkets cook fast so I like to use them.
3. Add the fenugreek and aubergines to the curry and allow it to cook for five minutes with the lid on. If the curry looks too dry, add half a cup of water to it.
4. Once the aubergines and vaal papdi have softened add the tomatoes to it and allow to cook for a further 2-3 minutes. Don’t worry if your curry does not have the traditional red colour as it is difficult to get that red sauce with the kind of vegetables we have used. Taste and adjust any spices to your preference.
5. Serve with any Indian bread such as chappatis or parathas
Vaal papdi are also added to Undhiyu – A Gujarati curry which has vegetable dumplings in it. The recipe for undhiyu is here
You may wish to try the following recipes from my blog:
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