Indian Recipes
Stir-Fried Cabbage with Spices (Porial)
Finely shredded cabbage stir-fried with mustard seeds, curry leaves and chilli, finished with coconut: a South Indian everyday side.
- Serves 4
- Prep 10 min
- Cook 12 min
- Indian
Method
Heat the oil in a wok or wide frying pan. Add the mustard seeds and, when they start to pop, the chana dal; stir until it turns golden.
Add the dried chilli, curry leaves and green chilli and stir for a few seconds, then the turmeric.
Add the cabbage and ½ teaspoon of salt and toss well. Cover and cook over a medium-low heat for 5–7 minutes, stirring once or twice, until just tender but still with a little bite. Add only 2 tablespoons of water: the cabbage should steam, not stew.
Stir in the coconut and cook for 1 minute more. Serve hot with rice and rasam or dal.
Tip: tap a step to tick it off as you cook.
Chef’s notes
- If using desiccated coconut, soak it in 2 tablespoons of warm water for 10 minutes first to soften.
How this recipe was developed
The old Cookeryonline page reproduced a published recipe, so we wrote a new one. We followed the South Indian cabbage poriyal (thoran) as cooked by Hebbar’s Kitchen.
- Finely shredded, briefly covered. Hebbar’s Kitchen shreds the cabbage very finely, adds only a splash of water and cooks it covered for about 5 minutes, warning against too much water.
- Coconut finish. Hebbar grinds fresh coconut with dried chilli and cumin to stir in at the end; we use desiccated coconut for simplicity.
- Tempering. The mustard seed, curry leaf and optional chana dal tempering is the standard South Indian start.
Sources we compared (ratings as shown on each site on 31 October 2026):
This is an original Cookeryonline recipe written in our own words. Ingredient choices and techniques are credited above; no source text has been copied.