Lunch Box Series : LBS#33

Published: May 23, 2008 · Modified: Sep 23, 2020 by Srivalli · 30 Comments

The love I have for Pulihora can't be actually summarized in words! Still I may try to make an attempt.From time immemorial, I remember Amma making Puliyodarai or Tamarind Rice, every week without fail. And every week we look forward for the day to arrive. Infact Pulihora became so regular as a Saturday lunch, we decided we skip it for couple of weeks, just to bring a freshness to our menu. But end of two weeks, everybody felt its not worth spending a Saturday without Puliyodarai to highlight our lunch.

Saturday and Sunday menus have always been a long one at parents place. I continue to follow the Sunday sentiments, though Saturday is not the same at my home off late.Well Amma was able to follow that more because all of us used to have the weekend off, so she could always plan elaborate lunches and dinners. But with us both working, we find its not really possible to plan for anything more than decided 3-4 items. Amma makes the typical Pulihora, which never fails to impress our taste buds. Infact my sil's family love this so much that I always have this as a regular menu.

This time too, it was different. But Athamma said I can make this to be packed for lunch as they were traveling the day. When I told Amma that I am going to make this, she was all excited in telling me the new recipe that she tried recently. She got this recipe from Dad's friends, who stayed with them, during their trip and Aunty, who is a tamil brahmin, prepared this for their travel. Amma said that it tasted like the temple puliyodai that we get here. Nothing can beat that in my opinion. So this time when I wanted to prepare this, I asked Amma for the recipe and got down preparing. Since I was preparing for 15 people, the mix took pretty long time to get done. But the result was just awesome. I managed to have some for our lunch box too and it was simply great! Made a new variety of potato fry to go with the tamarind rice and the combination was simply too good.

If you are looking for a classic Tamil Bhahmin Puliyodarai recipe, then this is it!

Today's Lunch Box had

Pulihora or Puliyodarai
Potatoes with Tamarind
Curd Rice

Pulihora or Puliyodarai ~ Tamarind Rice in TamBrahmin style

Preparation Time: 30 mins
Cooking Time: 15 mins
Cuisine: Tamil Nadu

Ingredients needed:

For the rice:

Cooked rice - 2 cups (400 gms)
Asafetida - 1/4 tsp
Turmeric - 1/2 tsp

For the gravy or pulikachal

Tamarind - size of a lemon.
Red chillies - 5
Bengal Gram - 1 tbsp
Ground Nut - 2 tbsp
Mustard Seeds - 1 tsp
Curry Leaves - 1
Salt to taste
Oil - 150 ml

For powder (dry roasted)

Coriander Seeds - 2 tsp
Bengal Gram - 1 & 1/2 tsp
Red Chillies - 10 nos
Whole peppercorn - 10 nos
Fenugreek - 1/4 tsp

Separate powder
Sesame seeds - 2 tsp (opt) (dry roasted)

Method to prepare:

Soak tamarind in water for 30 mins. Extract thick pulp from it.

Cook rice and spread it over a big bowl. Add oil to make sure the grains are separate. When the rice is still hot, add the hing and turmeric. Mix well. This gives out such a beautiful colour and aroma, its just too good.

Meanwhile, dry roast all the ingredients for the powder and grind it once it is cool. Excepting Sesame powder, everything else needs to be ground together. Powder the Sesame seeds and store it separately.

Take a kadai, heat oil and add Bengal gram, Urud dal, Ground nuts, mustard seeds. Once it splutters, add curry leaves and red chilies.

Add the tamarind pulp to the above, salt, add required amount of water to boil. Once its boiled well and becomes semi solid, add the ground powder and cook well for 10 mins on sim or till oil comes out.

Once its done, mix it to the rice. Adjust salt and finally mix the ground sesame powder and mix again.

As any tamarind rice, this tastes great when prepared in the morning and had for lunch. Also a wonderful dish for traveling packing.

Potatoes with Tamarind

Ingredients Needed:

Potatoes - 250 gms
Onion - 1 big
Tamarind - size of marble.
Salt to taste
Chili powder - 1 tsp
Coriander powder - 1 tsp
Turmeric powder a pinch
Oil - 2 tsp

Seasonings
Curry leaves
Mustard + Urad dal - 1/2

Method to prepare:

Boil potatoes in a pressure cooker. Best way to pressure cook potatoes is by cutting them halve. Once they are cool, peel the skin and roughly chop them to small pieces. The potatoes need not be fully cooked. If they retain they shape, its good.

Soak Tamarind in water and extract pulp.

Heat a pan with oil. Add the seasoning. Once they splutter, then add the onion juliennes, salt, turmeric and sauté well till they are brown. Then stir in the cooked potatoes. Mix well. Add the tamarind pulp. Cook on high for 2 mins. Sim

Then add the chilli and coriander powder. Mix well. Sim for 10 - 15 mins or till you see that everything is well blended.

This goes very well with tamarind. You can even make a deep variety of this by adding less water in the tamarind and more oil while you roast it.

We normally add tomatoes or else just like that. This is the first time I made with puli and the taste was yummy!

Recipe

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