Porucha Kozhumbu

Volume

Serving for 4 people's rice.

Ingredients

- 1 kinnam toor daal
- 3x water (450ml)
- 1 snakeguord
- 1 davara grated coconut
- 0.5L water for gravy (+more as needed while cooking)
- 0.5 tsp turmeric
- 4 tsp salt + to taste
- 3 tsp sambar powder
- 2 tbsp oil + 1 tbsp oil
- 1 tbsp urad daal
- 8 red chillis (dried) + 4 red chillis (dried)
- 1 tbsp pepper
- 1 tsp mustard seeds
- 10 curry leaves
- 0.25 tsp asofoetida
- Additional red chilli powder (optional)

Other Requirements

- Pressure cooker
- Large sauce pan + ladel
- Mixie
- Another sauce pan / tava

Steps to Prepare

1. Cook the Paruppu

  1. Follow the usual process to prepare paruppu using a pressure cooker (covered under basics).

  2. Once prepared, add 2 tsp of salt and mix and mash it thoroughly.

2. Boil the Snakeguord

  1. Deseed and dice the snakeguord.

  2. Place it in a sauce pan and add enough water to cover the snakeguord and some more. Ensure that there is enough water to boil the snakeguord thoroughly.

  3. Add 0.5 tsp of turmeric, 1.5 tsp of salt and 3 tsp of sambar powder to the sauce pan. Mix the powders in with the water and leave to boil.

  4. The snakeguord might take a long time to boil sufficiently. It may take between 25 minutes and an hour. It is important for it to become soft enough to easily cut with a spoon. More water may be added now and then, in case the water has eveaporated and the vegetable isn't soft enough yet.

3. Mix the Coconut Base

  1. In another sauce pan or tava add 2 tbsp of oil and wait till it's hot.
  2. Add 1 tbsp of urad daal, break open 8 red chillis (dried) and add 1 tbsp of pepper.
  3. Fry the mix in the tava till it is no longer raw.

  4. Add the mix to a mixie and add 1 davara of grated coconut to the mixie.

  5. Incrementally add small amounts of water and run the mixie, so that the paste isn't too watery, but gets ground and mixed well.

  6. Use water to clean up whatever remains in the mixie and add to the paste. It doesn't matter if this paste gets diluted and loses it's consistency a bit.

4. Cook the Kozhumbu

  1. Once the snakeguord has become soft enough, add the coconut paste to the dish first.

  2. Stir thoroughly, and allow it to boil for a while, so that the coconut also gets cooked well. Ensure that it is stirred frequently, so that it mixes well and doesn't clump.

  3. Once the 2 elements have mixed well, add the paruppu to the mix as well. This is a good stage to add some water to try to maintain the required consistency for a kozhumbu. This one should be relatively thick, but still liquidy, and not paste like.
  4. At this stage taste the kozhumbu frequently and add salt or other powders as required to get the appropriate flavour.

  5. Once the consistency, flavour and temperature are appropriate, empty the sauce pan into a finl container.

5. Thalcha Kottifying

  1. In the second sauce pan, add 1 tbsp of oil. Add 1 tsp of mustard seeds.
  2. When the seeds begin to sizzle, break open and add 4 dried red chillis, 0.25 tsp of asofoetida, 10 curry leaves and optionally some 1 tsp of red chilli powder.

  3. Allow it to sizzle a little bit and then add it on top of the completed Kozhumbu.

  4. Do not mix it into the dish yet.
  5. After served, mix it in the last minute, just before serving onto different plates.

Serve the porucha kozhumbu with paruppu chadam or paruppu podi chadam.