Milagu Kuzhambu

⚠ Not yet reviewed against the source — may contain OCR/transcription errors.

Ingredients

• Tamarind 1 big lemon size
• salt to taste
• til oil 1 Tbsp

To grind to paste

• 4 red chillies
• 1 1/2 tsp peppercorns
• 1 tsp chana dal
• 2 tsp urad dal
• generous amount of hing
• 1 or 2 sprigs of curry leaves

For tempering

• 1 1/2 tsp til oil
• 1 tsp mustard seeds
• few curry leaves

Method

1. Soak tamarind in one cup of warm water and extract the juice and set aside.
2. To make the masala paste
3. Heat the pan and add 1/2 teaspoon of oil and fry the red chillis first. When the colour of the red chilli changes to light brown, add peppercorns, urad dal, channa dal and hing and fry on medium heat.
4. Add the curry leaves at the final stage and fry once and transfer to a mixer.
5. Add little water (may be 1/4 cup or less) and grind it to a fine paste. If required add more water while grinding.
6. Heat the pan and add 1 tablespoon of Oil. Once the oil get hot, add the mustard seeds. On sputtering add the curry leaves & a pinch of hing.
7. Add the Tamarind extract juice along with salt and allow it to boil for 5 minutes so that the raw smell of the tamarind goes off.
8. Add the ground paste and stir well to make sure that the paste mixes well in the kuzhambu mixture and there are no lumps formed from the paste. Keep the flame low and allow the kuzhambu to boil in low flame for at least 10 minutes.
9. When the kuzhambu comes to a thick consistency, remove from flame. We can store it in the fridge and use it for upto 2 weeks.

Serve this with hot rice and a spoon of ghee and chutta appalam.
10. (If storing for more than a couple of days, top with til oil after it is cooled)

Source: namma-veetu-samayal