Vaazhaikai Podi & Rice

     Vaazhaikai Podi is one of the recipes that I had bookmarked to try from Venkatesh Bhat's program in Vijay TV on Plantain special recipes. Though I used two bananas instead of just one banana which was shown in the program & also with the reduced amount of spices, I felt this end product a little hot and spicy. So, I have documented the ingredients with slightly lesser quantity of chillies and coriander seeds to have it less spicy and to suit my taste buds.
     The recipe when watched in the show, looked so very different and yummy. But only after trying it out I realized that it tasted somewhat familiar..  :D Yes.. it had a taste close to the araichu vitta sambar, as the key ingredients for the podi were almost the same :D
     Overall, it tasted good when mixed with rice & coconut oil & also as a side-dish for curd rice :P

Prep Time: 5 mins || Cook Time: 25 mins (pressure cook) + 20 mins || Yields: 3 cups || Category: Ready mix for rice / side-dish

Ingredients:
1. Raw Banana - 2
2. Turmeric Powder - 2tsp
3. Salt - as required
4. Dry red chillies - 6
5. Bengal gram - 3 tbsp
6. Toor dal - 1 & 1/2 tbsp
7. Coriander seeds - 3/4 tbsp
8. Pepper - 1 tsp
9. Cumin seeds - 1 tsp
10. Coconut oil - 3 tbsp
11. Mustard seeds - 1 tsp
12. Urad dal - 3 tsp
13. Curry leaves - a sprig
14. Hing - 2 tsp

Method:
1. Wash the bananas and cut each of them into two or three pieces. Immerse them in water in a pressure pan. Add some turmeric powder and salt to it. Pressure cook for 5-6 whistles. Meanwhile, in a pan add 1 spoon of coconut oil and roast the red chillies and transfer them to a plate.

2. To the same pan, add bengal gram, toor dal & coriander seeds and roast them. Before they are done, add pepper and cumin seeds and roast all the ingredients till golden brown & transfer to a plate to cool down.

3. Once the banana is cooked, drain the hot water and run in some cold water and rinse the bananas. The outer skin can now be easily peeled off from the bananas. Mash all the peeled bananas. Transfer the roasted ingredients to a mixie jar and powder them smoothly.

4. In a pan, add some coconut oil and then temper with mustard seeds, urad dal, curry leaves & hing. Transfer this tempering to the mashed bananas. Add the ground powder & required amount of salt and mix well. Vaazhaikai Podi is done !!

Suggestions:

• Can adjust the quantity of red chillies, coriander seeds based on one's desired spice level.
• Coconut oil gives a nice aroma. But, any other oil can be used.

Mix with hot cooked rice & hot gingely oil / coconut oil / ghee & enjoy with fryums or any side-dish... Tastes yummyyy even without side-dish !!!

Karuveppilai Podi

     I make karuveppilai podi every week. But there are a couple of reasons for such a high regularity in frequency though. Here, Curry leaves are available in the supermarket only for few days in a week. And they are costly too. Even if we pay the price, it is very hard to keep it in reserve in good condition, till the next stock arrives.
    I would say that buying curry leaves demands a very good skill, which comes by default to us, the Chennaites. We have to dig our head into the store's refrigerator and go for a typical Indianish sorting activity of the ziplock packs, to get the one containing the freshest leaves.

     Every gobble of this podi with rice or idly, sets the film rolling to a flashback of my vegetable purchase at Chennai, where I get some vegetables with the only final intention of picking up huge amounts of karuveppilai for free !!! :D Golden days:)

Prep Time:  20 mins || Cook Time: 5 mins || Category: Ready Mix powder

Ingredients:

1. Curry Leaves - 1 cup

2. Dry red chillies - 2

3. Urad dal - 2 tbsp

4. Bengal Gram (Kadalai paruppu) - 1 & 1/2 tbsp

5. Pepper - 1 tsp

6. Cumin seeds - 1 tsp

7. Oil - 2 tsp

8. Salt - as required

Method:
1. Wash and dry the curry leaves in a clean towel. Once the leaves have dried, roast them in a pan without oil. Roast the other ingredients in oil until golden brown.

2. Cool the roasted ingredients. Grind the dal mixture into a coarse powder and keep aside in a bowl.

3. Grind the roasted curry leaves coarsely. Then add the dal powder on top of the curry leaves powder and desired quantity of salt and blend on low speed for about less than a minute, to ensure even mixing of the dals with curry leaves.

Store the powder in an air-tight container. Keep refrigerated until and after every use. This will keep it good for about 5 to 6 days.

Enjoy it with hot rice topped with gingelly oil or for idly or dosa.