Recipe - Paruppu Usili And Paruppu Urundai Kozhambu (PUK) And Other Tamil Dishes

Paruppu Usili

1. Soak Paruppu (Thoram Paruppu: Kadalai Paruppu in 4:1) in water for 3 hrs. After soaking, remove water, add salt, red chili, hing, grind.
2. Then steam / boil the ground dal (in pressure cooker with the weight on top or cook it in a small vessel which is an island inside a larger vessel!! The way one would cook rice without pressure cooker. Oil the insides of the smaller vessel before steaming) Then grate. Grating cannot be done if the boiled dal is too soft and hard. In which case just stir vigorously while frying in oil. Steaming step is optional. One can directly fry the ground dal - more oil will be consumed in that case. Soaking and grinding makes the dal like coconut. And hence the dish looks like Vazhakkai Podi

Beans And Soaked (overnight) Tuvar dal and Chana dal

Ground dal (after removing all water) with hing, red chili,salt.About to be steamed.

Boiled Beans with salt water

Dal after steaming. It should be fluffy not hard

Fry ground dal in oil

After frying

Finally mix dal with beans. 

Paruppu Urundai Kozhambu

1. The base for the balls is same as for paruppu usili (in usili the ground dal will be subsequently steamed/fried and mixed with beans/avarakkai). This is same as the 1st step for Paruppu Usili. Remember the dal balls have to be tasty by themselves. Then add coconut. Do not grind coconut. (Coconut is optional). Beat the ground dal for 10 mins until it becomes fluffy.
2. The ground dal has to be mixed with til oil and then the balls have to be made. The balls are then dropped one by one into sambar. Keep stirring. Be very careful not to "disintegrate" the balls in sambar while stirring. Steaming is not needed here because the balls are boiled in sambar unlike in usili. This is almost same as sambar except no boiled tuvar dal is added. The dal balls are added. The balls play the role of "thaan" (pumpkin / potato / ladies finger / brinjal) in sambar.

Tuvar dal and Chana dal soaked in water (+salt) overnight

Base for PUK (Paruppu Urundai Kozhambu) - same as in sambar, Except no dal

Filter out water from soaked dal (add the water into sambar base or rasam or throw it out), add red chilies, salt, hing and grind well. Make sure all water is removed before grinding.

Make balls out of the ground dal

Drop the one by one into the PUK base. Be careful  so the balls don't break.

Boil the dal so the urundai solidifies. Poke ball with a knife and if no dal sticks to knife its fine.

Lemon Rasam

Potato (also raw banana) Podimas:
Urulaikizhangu (vazhakkai) Podimas: Cut green chilies, ginger add curry leaves, Chana dal, urad dal, red chili, mustard and fry the same. Mix with boiled, mashed potato. Boiled potato can be replaced with boiled (and peeled) raw banana to make a nice side dish. Squeeze half a lemon

Pattani Chaadam (Peas Rice / Pulao)
Roast a little grated coconut and then add Dhaniya, Chana Dal + urad dal, Red chili, hing, salt. You can add green chili and jeera also while frying (and subsequently grind). Grind the roasted stuff. Break raw Cashew nut into smaller pieces. Fry it in refined oil. Mix the ground powder, rice, ghee dhaniya leaves, fried cashewnuts. (Good idea to add boiled peas also). Add tadka.

Chana and urad dals, jeera, dhaniya, red chili and coconut

Frozen peas below for peas rice. Rice used 1cup (about 150ml)

Pattani chaadam

Vazhakkai Podi:

1. Boil Raw banana in a pressure cooker (if you are boiling rice, you can cook raw banana along with it). Then grate boiled raw banana and coconut.
2. Fry all dal, hing, red chili and salt. Then grind this. Mix grated raw banana with grated coconut. Mix grated stuff and ground stuff.  All dal means tuvar, chana, urad. Add tadka. White powder in the cup below is ground dal (all 3).

Tomato Kozhambu

1. Boil cut tomato (Retain the hot water). Boil dal (tuvar dal or moong dal) Take the tomatoes out, cool them in cold water and peel the skin and mash the peeled tomato well.  Put the mashed tomato back into the boiled water. Add salt and haldi powder.
2. Add roasted and ground mixture of red chili, dhaniya, methi, jeera, hing and pepper
3. Add the ground mixture in water and let it boil for some time. Sautee mustard and green chili. Then add dhaniya leaves. Difference from sambar: no sambar powder but roast and ground dhaniya, jeera, pepper (no imli because of tomato). Almost same stuff to be ground as Pattani chadam, methi also needed in addition.

Mor Kozhambu
Wet grind Grated coconut, green chilies, rice, salt, then mix with buttermilk (on the side) and heat less than 5 mins.. Add fried red chilies, mustard, methi.


Varuththu Araicha Mor Kozhambu (VAMK): Add longitudinally cut eggplant, potato. Fry and then grind urad dal, red chili, rice, methi then grind with coconut. Add this and cut vegetables to boiling water (no imli, no hing), add salt and buttermilk. (Imli can be added instead of buttermilk.) Eruvali kozhambu: Same as VAMK except use chana dal instead of urad dal.

Aviyal:

Coconut Rice and Lemon Rice - Usually made on Kanu (Day after pongal and for Adi Perukku); 

Seasoning for both: Mustard, red chili, green chili, curry leaves in til oil for all rice. 

In addition: Lemon rice: Chana dal seasoning. Lemon rice: Mix lemon juice, haldi, salt. Then add seasoning with rice to make lemon rice.  
Coconut rice: Urad dal, grated coconut, cashew nuts, coconut must each be fried separately (and then added with seasoning and rice). Coconut must be roasted until it becomes red.  Add salt. Mix with rice. 
Tomato rice: Cut tomato into small pieces. Sautee Mustard, jeera, chana dal, curry leaves, onion. Add sambar powder (and garam masala powder or my suggestion: garlic and ginger paste). Add cut tomato, salt. Mix this with rice. Add curry and dhaniya leaves.

Tarka, Ghooghni, Aludam, Khichdi, Dal Makhni:

Lemon pickle:

1. Cut lemon (remove the seeds) and mix with salt and haldi for a couple of days
2. Roast methi then powder
3. Fry solid hing then powder (or use hing powder)
4. Add Red chili powder (1:1.25 by volume of lemon: chili powder), methi and hing powders from above.
5. Heat oil, fry mustard seeds, add above ingredients
6. Only til oil to be used for all pickles

Inji Jeeram
Peel ginger, add jeera, methi, dhaniya. Grind this mixture and then add jaggery and grind. Take the ground stuff and stir in ghee. This is good for indigestion. This is to be eaten like a medicine 1-2 tsp.

Stir Until Very Thick

Inji Char:
Optionally inji, jeeram, pepper, haldi can be wet ground adding sufficient amount of hot water. Then squeeze the ground ingredients and retain the liquid (throw away the solids). Add sugar and squeeze lemon.

Puli Molagai (Milagai): 

Kozhukkattai:

Grate coconut. Make paagu by adding a little water to jaggery. Filter it and remove the solids (dust, stone etc). Heat the liquid, then add grated coconut and keep stirring. It will become sticky after it dries. Add elaichi powder. This is the poornam.

Soak raw rice in water for an hour. Remove the water, and powder the rice fine (not coarse) in mixie. Boil water (the volume of water  to be same as volume of rice powder), add til oil, a little salt and switch off the stove. Then slowly add rice powder and keep stirring and make it homogeneous until it become like roti dough. Then use til oil to ensure the dough doesn't stick.. And then make a choppu (semicircular) shape and then fill the poornam and close the choppu. Make a few such. Then steam the batch for 5-8 minutes. Kozhakkattai ready. You may have to steam them in batches depending on the quantity you plan to make.

• Badam Halwa:
• Keerai (Spinach) Masiyal
• Homemade Butter And Ghee
• Rava Upma And Coconut (Thengai) Chutney
• Chakkarai Pongal
• Paruppu Usili And Paruppu Urundai Kozhambu

Note that fried dal mixture, red chilli, hing, coconut are used in VAMK (varuthu araicha mor kozhambu), coconut rice, vazhakkai podi and vaazhakkai koottu.

A friend sent me this: use at your peril -https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1xQDlpMnLKxd0RqMnhzRzBuTzg/view?usp=sharing