Omavalli Chutney | Karpooravalli Chutney | Ajwain Leaves Chutney
This delicious Omavalli Chutney or Karpooravalli Chutney is made with Ajwain leaves, also known as the Mexican mint or Cuban Oregano. If you are looking to incorporate more herbs in your cooking, this Ajwain Leaves Chutney is a great recipe to start with.
Karpooravalli or Omavalli plant is a perennial plant that is most commonly grown as an indoor plant year-round. My dear friend Aparna has a couple of beautiful, luscious plants growing in her house, and she gave me a couple of cuttings from her plants this summer.
The best part about this plant is that it grows easily from a cutting. I let it sit in water until roots started appearing, and then transferred it to a pot. The pots remained outside all summer, and it grew wild.
Karpooravalli, also known as Omavalli in Tamil, Ajwain leaves in Hindi, and Mexican Mint / Cuban Oregano in English, is a very easy-to-grow plant and has many medicinal properties. I have been regularly making some kashaayam / tea with the leaves for sore throat and cold, and it has been quite effective.
When thinking of how else to use the beautiful leaves, I came across recipes for bajji with the leaves. I will be making that soon as well, but I wanted to make something that is not deep-fried and more practical for a quick weeknight dinner.
For this chutney, I just used the leaves as I would use mint or cilantro. I used some coconut in the chutney to cut down on the very herbal flavor of the Karpooravalli leaves and also to add some body to the chutney.
I served the chutney with dosai for dinner. My older one loved it, and my little one hated it. So yes, the taste needs a little bit of getting used to. If you are looking to incorporate more herbs in your cooking, this is a great recipe to start with.
This week, my theme for BM is 'Colorful recipes' and my first recipe for this theme is this Green colored Karpooravalli chutney.
Preparation time - 5 minutes
Cooking time - 10 minutes
Difficulty level - easy
Ingredients to make Karpooravalli Chutney - Serves 4
- Karpooravalli leaves / Ajwain leaves - 20 leaves
- Coconut - ½ cup (grated)
- Ullutham Paruppu / Urad dal - 2 TBSP
- Red chilies - 2
- Green chilies - 2
- Tamarind piece - a tiny piece (marble-sized)
- Oil - 1 tsp
- Salt - to taste
To temper the Omavalli chutney -
- Oil - 1 tsp
- Mustard seeds - 1 tsp
- Ullutham Paruppu / Urad dal - 1 tsp
- Asafetida - ¼ tsp
- Curry leaves - a few
Procedure to make Ajwain Leaves Chutney -
- Pick the Omavalli leaves from the plant and remove any thick stems from them. Clean the leaves and keep them aside.
- In a pan, heat 1 teaspoon of oil and add the ullutham paruppu / urad dal, red chilies, and green chilies. Fry them until the lentils turn slightly brown.
- Now add the cleaned Ajwain leaves to the pan and fry them on a low flame until the leaves wilt a little bit (about 5 minutes).
- Add the grated coconut and the tamarind piece and give it a quick stir. Turn off the flame and let the mixture cool down.
- Grind the chutney using just enough water and the required salt.
- Heat a small pan and heat 1 more teaspoon of oil. Add the tempering ingredients and let it fry. Add the tempering to the chutney and mix well.
Similar Chutney Recipes
If you made this recipe and liked it, give a star rating on the recipe card or let me know in the comments below. You could also share it with me on Instagram using #MyCookingJourney and tagging me @sandhya.ramakrishnan. You could follow me and my recipes on Facebook |Instagram | Pinterest | Twitter/X
Recipe
Karpooravalli Chutney | Omavalli Chutney | Ajwain Leaves Chutney
Equipment
- Small pan
- Stove
Ingredients
- 20 leaves Karpooravalli leaves / Ajwain leaves
- ½ cup Coconut grated
- 2 tablespoon Ullutham Paruppu / Urad dal
- 2 Red chilies
- 2 Green chilies
- 1 marble size Tamarind piece a marble size
- 1 teaspoon Oil
- Salt to taste
To temper the chutney -
- 1 teaspoon Oil
- 1 teaspoon Mustard seeds
- 1 teaspoon Ullutham Paruppu / Urad dal
- ¼ teaspoon Asafetida
- Curry leaves few
Instructions
- Pick the Omavalli leaves from the plant and remove any thick stems in them. Clean the leaves and keep it aside.
- In a pan, heat 1 teaspoon of oil and add the ullutham paruppu / urad dal, red chilies and green chilies. Fry them until the lentls turn slightly brown.
- Now add the cleaned Ajwain leaves to the pan and fry it low flame until the leaves wilt a little bit (about 5 minutes).
- Add the grated coconut and the tamarind piece and give it a quick stir. Turn off the flame and let the mixture cool down.
- Grind the chutney using just enough water and required salt.
- Heat a small pan and heat 1 more teaspoon of oil. Add the tempering ingredients and let it fry. Add the tempering to the chutney and mix well.
- Serve with idli or dosai!
Hi,
I tried this recipe twice now and it came out very well. It tastes very good with Moongdal Chilla or Passerethu.
Mittal, thanks a lot for your feed back. I am so happy that the recipe worked well for you.
I was wondering what to do with omavalli leaves other than making oma water and thats when came across this recipe. It was a wonderful side dish loved by all. Thank you!
Thanks a lot Nithya! Appreciate your feedback.
That is such a healthy and nutritious chutney using ajwain leaves. I've never tried them myself, but would love to give this chutney a try some time.
Your herb plant looks so beautiful Sandhya. We used to have this but sadly its not growing offlate. Will have to try it again..the chutney sounds so yummy!
I love these chutneys when you cook before grind. That makes chutneys more creamy and smooth. Ajawain leaf chutney looking absolutely amazing. I am bookmarking this to try.
Such a healthy chutney that is. I will definitely try this dish if I get those leaves.
I was thinking that the chutney would be very pungent but I can see how the use of onion and tomato can mask the pungent taste. Good share, Sandhya
I made a similar chutney last week. I loaded it with onion and tomatoes and they helped in masking the strong flavour of these leaves. You version sound so yum. My daughter loves these leaves so much and she keeps asking me to make dishes out of it. Will try you version next time I pick some leaves off the plant.
I found that reducing the number of omavalli leaves helps to increase the taste of the chutney and decrease the pungentness . You can also make spinach chutney and add ajwain leaves in the chutney. Adding some toor dal will increase the taste and nutrition.
Thanks for the suggestions!
you are so lucky to be able to grow so much of your own stuff. This chutney must taste so awesome with the fresh produce.
Seriously you are lucky to get those fresh ajwain leaves, excellent leaves with very interesting medicinal values na. Chutney looks simply fabulous.
I have heard these leaves are very good for cough and cold... the chutney looks so good...
A healthy chutney. Use to eat these leaves for cold and cough when growing up. Chutney looks wonderful.
I Made this Chutney and it turned out amazing thank you so much
The only other use of this leaf was for making bajjis/pakoda- so this was a far healthier option thank you so much again
Thanks for trying the recipe. I was very excited to use the leaves for the chutney as well as I feel it is a sustainable way to use it more often.
I need to see if I can get a cutting of the plant here. This is so good and healthy. Great share Sandhya.