I was pretty excited to try this out after finding a recipe on Indian Food Forever. The idea for coconut in a raita form popped into my head while I was browsing Coconut Chutney recipes. I love coconut. I love raita. Why not? A quick search turned out this was not as original an idea as I thought it was and the recipe seemed good enough. I made a few adjustments for a smoother, slightly sweeter raita with mild spicy undertones and just a hint of heat.
Coconut Raita
- Yield: 6 1x
Ingredients
Scale
- 2 cups plain yogurt, whipped
- 3 tablespoons water
- 1/2 cup grated coconut
- 1/8 teaspooon chili powder
- 3 teaspoons sugar
- Salt to taste
Tempering (Tadka)
- 1/4 yellow onion, minced
- 1 green chili, deseeded and minced
- 6 raisins
- 3 cashew nuts
- 1/2 teaspoon mustard seed
- 1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
- 4 curry leaves
- 2 teaspoons coconut oil
Instructions
- Combine the yogurt and coconut and stir to mix well, adding water, chili powder, sugar and salt to taste
- To prepare the tempering, saute mustard seeds in coconut oil until they start crackling
- Add curry leaves, cumin seeds, green chili, onions, raisins and cashew nuts
- Saute until the onions brown slightly and remove from heat
- Allow to cool before adding the tempering to the yogurt mixture
- Mix well and refridgerate
- Serve chilled
Notes
Inspired by Indian Food Forever
Comments & Reviews
Can I use young coconut flesh (soft and silky) or does it have to be grated? And do I just mix it or do I blend it with the yogurt so that its creamy? Thanks!
Young coconut would have too much water content to work well with this. Any kind of grated or dried coconut will work well for this. It’s been awhile since I made this but I don’t think I blended it, just combined it all through stirring. You could try it though, especially if your coconut flakes are too big. Technically it should work to make it somewhat creamy and more incorporated flavor-wise. Hope this helps!
Can a curry powder, I do not have leaves?
You can find the leaves in the frozen section of Indian grocery stores but if you cannot find it still, just omit it and don’t use curry powder. The powder will completely change the taste of the recipe while the leaves are only meant to add aroma and a hint of flavor. They ae not the same!