Vethal Kozhumbu

Volume

Serving for 4 people's rice.

Ingredients

- 0.5 kinnam tamarind paste
- 2 drumsticks
- 2 tbsp til oil
- 1 tsp mustard seeds
- 1 tbsp toor dal
- 4 red chillis (dried)
- 12 curry leaves
- 0.5tsp asofoetida
- 2tsp sambar powder
- 3 tsp vethal kozhumbu powder
- 2 tsp red chilli powder
- 1.5 L water
- 3 tbsp of jaggery
- 3 tsp sugar
- 4 tsp salt

Other Requirements

Sauce pan + ladel

Steps to Prepare

1. Make the Paste

  1. Take 0.5 kinnams of tamarind paste and squeeze it out into a vessel. Add some water to the vessel and dissolve it. This water should come from the overall allowance of 1.5L. Make sure enough is added at this stage to roughly dissolve most of the tamarind paste.

2. Cooking the Kozhumbu

  1. Start by washing and cutting 2 drumsticks. While cutting the drumsticks, peel off any loose husk that may come out.
  2. In a sauce pan add 2 tbsp til oil and 1 tsp of mustard seeds.
  3. Once the seeds begin to sizzle, break open and add 4 red chillis. Add 1tbsp of toor daal, 0.5 tsp of asofoetida, 12 curry leaves, 2tsp of sambar powder, 3 tsp of vethal kozhumbu powder (can be replaced with sambar powder if unavailable) and 2 tsp of red chilli powder.
  4. At this stage a strong smoke may emanate, so quickly add the tamarind water.

  5. The tamarind paste may not have completely dissolved, so add a little more water to the vessel, dissolve and bring out whatever tamarind water remains in the vessel. In doing so, add whatever remains of the total 1.5L of wtaer.
  6. Add the chopped drumsticks to the vessel and allow it to boil in the liquid. At this stage mix the dish around to ensure that all added elements are mixing well, and dissolving. Ensure that nothing sticks to the side of the dishes.

  7. Add 4 tsp of salt to the dish and mix thoroughly. Taste the dish at this stage and adjust the powders present in the dish to ensure that the taste matches the requirement. Here we are tasting for the spice and the sourness, not the sweetness yet.
  8. Add 3 tbsp of jaggery to the dish. The jaggery should be cut into smaller blocks and added to the dish, so that it can dissolve more easily without clumping.

  9. Once again taste the dish and make sure that the proprtions of spices are okay. At this stage a little more sweetness might be required / nice to have. If so, add up to 3tsp of sugar to the dish and allow it to continue boiling.
  10. The dish should boil until the drumsticks are cooked well and the consistency of the kozhumbu is slightly thick. The dish will be largely liquidy. Once it has begun to become a little bit thicker, the flame can be switched off.

  11. While the kozhumbu is hot, transfer it to another vessel, and allow a little more water to evaporate, as it cools.

  12. After the kozhumbu has cooled and flavour from various elements has thoroughly sunk in, it is then recommended that you pass the kozhumbu through a filter. Collect the entire liquid. From the filtered out part, add the drumsticks back, but leave the leaves and red chillis out.

Serve the vethal kozhumbu with paruppu chadam, paruppu thogel chadam or paruppu podi chadam.