Paruppu Podi

Another one of my favourites is Paruppu Podi. I enjoy paruppu podi with hot rice and ghee, and my mom, mother in law and my chitti ensured that I always had a bottle of their hand made paruppu podi with me, so that I could use it for any quick fix meal, or sometimes even instead of the cooked tur dal in the rasam!

With lockdown firmly in place, and even if removed, the "No travel" restrictions that we have put upon ourselves has emptied all those stocked up bottles, and so there, just like everything else under the sun, I decided to try my hand at making this by myself too!!!

This time I followed a recipe by the channel - Agrahara Recipes. And I ended up with some super tasty paruppu podi, easy to make as well.

So here goes - a record for quick access -

Ingredients - 

1/3 cup urad dal

1/3 cup moong dal

1/3 cup tur dal

5 red chillies (Or as per your spice requirements)

1 tsp asafoetida

A few curry leaves

1 tsp mustard seeds

2 tsp gingelly oil

Salt to taste

Method of preparation -

Dry roast the urad dal, till it turns golden brown, keep aside. Do the same with tur dal, and then with moong dal. Make sure the colour changes and an aroma wafts for all the three dals.

Dry roast the red chillies. 

Once the dals cool down, grind them to a coarse powder. (or if you like fine powder, do a few more rounds of the mixer, and then sieve the ground powder)

Take a kadhai, heat up 2 tsps of gingelly oil, and add mustard seeds. Once they crackle, add torn curry leaves and finally add asafoetida and turn of the flame. 

Pour this tempering onto the powder, mix well. Add salt as per your taste. Mix well. Cool. Store in an air tight container.

Add this powder to steaming hot rice and have it with a dollop of ghee!!

Kadalaparuppu Payasam

It's August, and the start of festival season. One of our first function is the annual "Avani Avittam" where the men change their sacred thread. I was tickled to hear my chitti call it the "Annual renewal of license".

The day after the men change their poonal, they need to chant the Gayatri Mantra.

Each of these days is dotted with traditional specialities offered for neivedyam. The specialities differ in different households. In our family, on the first day we prepare urad dal vadai and nei appam. The day of the Gayatri mantra chanting is characterised by a payasam.

I decided to make Kadalaparuppu payasam this time. I have tried out Semiya payasam and pal payasam many times before. However, I have never ventured into making the dal and jaggery payasam ever before. For festivals and religious functions, the dal - jaggery payasam is the one that is supposed to be offered to the Lord.

Whenever my mother made kadalaparuppu payasam, I absolutely loved it. So I quickly buzzed her for the recipe, and here it is. (Wanted to share it right when it's fresh in my mind! Just made it this morning!)


Ingredients -
Chana dal - 1/2 cup
Jaggery (broken into pieces) - 3/4 cup
Cardamom powder - A pinch
Coconut milk - 1 cup (or even more based on your taste)
A few cashews roasted in ghee.

How to make -

Roast the chana dal in a dry pan, till it gives an aroma. Don't wait till it changes colour. Once done, wash the chana dal. Pressure cook it with 2 cups of water for 3 whistles. It needs to cook very well. Once pressure releases, you need to mash it well.

In a separate pan, take the powdered jaggery, add one cup of water and let it melt. Bring it to a boil. Add the mashed chana dal into this jaggery water. Let the mixture boil till it starts to thicken to payasam consistency.

Grind coconut with water to extract one cup of coconut milk. (To extract the coconut milk - You can transfer the ground coconut onto a muslin cloth and squeeze out the coconut milk from the cloth)

Add this coconut milk to the jaggery and chana dal mixture and immediately turn of flame.

Add cardamom powder, and the cashews roasted in ghee - and your payasam is ready to be served!

It tastes divine! :)

Temple Style Sambar

During this "2020 Lockdown", everyone at home has ended up becoming a chef, and started to explore various cuisines, various styles of cooking and so on.

One request came from the husband to make "Temple Style Sambar". The request came along with a youtube video link as well to make things simpler for me :)

We tried this sambar recipe from "Namma Adige" - A Kannada Cooking Channel, and it was simply delicious, exactly like the Sambars served in Temples of Karnataka.

I wanted to make a note of the recipe just in case I miss it next time I want to make it, so here goes -

Ingredients -

1 tbsp Dhania seeds
1/2 tbsp jeera
5 regular red chillis (guntur) and 3 byadige chillis
Few curry leaves
One tsp fried gram dal
2 tbsp Grated coconut
Boiled tur dal - 3 tbsp
One lemon ball sized tamarind soaked in hot water and juice extracted
1 tsp Oil for roasting
Salt to taste
Vegetables of your choice (I have used Tomatoes, yellow pumpkin, potatoes in this recipe)
Mustard seeds and hing for seasoning
A small ball of jaggery.

How to make -

Boil the tur dal with a bit of turmeric and keep aside.

Roast the Dhania seeds and cumin seeds in one tsp of oil. Once you notice the colour change, add the red chillis and curry leaves. Transfer to a mixer. Once the mixture cools, add the fried gram dal, and coconut and make a nice paste with a little bit of water.

In a pan, add a bit of oil and toss in the tomatoes. Roast well, and then add the other vegetables. Once the vegetables are cooked, add in the imli water. Let it boil for a while for the smell of the imli to reduce. Then add the cooked tur dal and the ground paste. Add water to make the consistence a little watery. Temple style sambar is generally much more watery than the regular sambar.

Add a small round ball of jaggery, and also add salt to taste.

Once it boils well, turn off, and enjoy with idlis or even hot rice with a dollop of ghee.

Note: These byadige chillis are added to enhance the color of the sambar. Their property is to give colour to the dish mainly, and spice levels of this type of chilli is very less.

Coming up next - Vangi bath powder (Which is also used as Yennegai powder) :) :)