Keerai Koottu

I once went to the place of an Indian friend of mine who had cooked dinner - it smelled really nice, and it looked like she had a big pot, so I asked if I could taste it. She seemed hesitant, almost apologetic, claiming that the dish was nothing special, nothing for westerners, too humble, too basic. But to her surprise I really liked it, so I asked for the recipe. She said it was called 'keerai koottu' and she later e-mailed me an approximate recipe. Here's my second attempt at it.

Ingredients:
- 260 g (9 oz) lentils
- 1.5 L (6 cups) water
- 200 g (7 oz) frozen spinach
- 8 bird chillies, seeds removed, chopped ^[1]
- 2 tsp corn starch
- 8 topped tbsp grated coconut
- 2 tsp ground cumin
- 4 tsp turmeric
- 4 tsp mustard powder
- salt

Mint raita:
- plain yoghurt
- garlic, crushed
- mint, chopped

The lentils were boiled in the water, unsalted and uncovered, for about 25 minutes, then added the frozen spinach. The spinach was thawed and the mixture was brought to a boil. The chillies were mixed with all the dry ingredients to form a uniform blend, which was stirred into the rest. Seasoned at last with salt.

The raita was made by simply stirring mint and garlic into yoghurt.

Served with brown rice, mango chutney, and flour tortillas.

Update: Served with my naan'ish bread:


^[1] This was actually a bit on the mild side of what it should have been like. The first time I made it with jalapeño peppers which was more appropriate.