This Kerala pineapple pulissery is a sweet, sour and mildly spicy curry in which succulent pineapple chunks are cooked in a coconut and yogurt based sauce. The pineapple soaks up the flavors of the sauce really well and lends its sweetness to the curry, making this an absolute treat.
Into a heavy bottomed pot, add in the pineapple, ½ cup water, kashmiri red chilli powder, turmeric powder and slit green chillies and set this mixture on medium high flame until it comes up to a boil. Reduce the flame to low and let the mixture simmer for 7-8 minutes.
In the meanwhile, blend all the ingredients under the curry paste section to a very fine paste. If you don't have fresh coconut, see notes.
Add the finely ground coconut paste along with an additional 1 cup of water to the simmering pineapple mixture and continue simmering the curry for another 10 minutes.
After 10 minutes, season the curry with salt and 1 teaspoon of jaggery/brown sugar powder and mix well. Turn off the heat and let the curry cool for about 20 minutes.
When the curry has cooled down for about 20 minutes, add in the whisked yogurt and mix well to combine. Taste and adjust seasoning if needed.
For the tempering:
Heat 1 teaspoon of coconut oil in a small pan on medium high heat. When it gets, hot add in the mustard seeds. When the mustard seeds start to pop, turn the heat to low and then add in the the cumin seeds, curry leaves and dried red chilli. Mix everything together and toast the spices for only about 30 seconds being careful not to burn them. Turn off the heat.
Pour this tempering mix over the pineapple curry and mix it well right before serving.
Notes
If you don't have or can't find fresh (non dried) coconut, here are some alternatives:
Replace it with ¾ cup desiccated coconut that has been soaked in ½ cup of hot water for about 30 minutes before using. The hot water should help re-hydrate the coconut and help blend it into a smooth paste.
While making the curry paste, replace the coconut with 1 can (400ml) of coconut milk. Don't use any additional water while making the curry paste. Also replace the additional 1 cup of water in the curry with only about ¼-1/2 cup depending on how thick you want your curry.