Another post from my draft.....
One more week to go to join with family and I already
started counting the days here. This
weekend is a long weekend everywhere and I badly miss being at home. On the
weekdays, I was deep diving at work here which keeps me going without missing
family. Also surrounded by some understandable
soft nature colleagues who patiently listens to my nonsense stuffs and makes
my days lighter. Weekends are hard to
pass by and only my long walks with no real destination are helping me to pass
time on the weekends.
Ahhhh, as I think of work now, some immediate random thoughts
are flashing up on my mind now. I could
foresee some changes at work environment and I am getting prepared for it. I really like the role that I had
play and get many learning exposures while interacting with cross functional teams co-located
worldwide. The team I work with feels
like a family, everyone here truly respects each other and help each other at work. During this journey, some of my team mates have turned into good friends. The
paths have changed for some of my wonderful colleagues and I am still in touch
with them. Well, the process changes are
inevitable and we should adapt ourselves.
Let's see what's in store for me next...
At home, both DH and Jr. H are enjoying the long weekend. Home is filled with guests from DH's end, so
DH is on full swing mode of enjoyment, taking them for long drives, beaches,
malls, film, restaurant. In fact, I am
bit relieved that both of them are enjoying without thinking about my absence,
otherwise I would go to a very moody mode worrying about them.
Not to take too much time about the happenings, let me move further
to the recipe. There are many variations
to this dish and I follow the authentic method of my family with a mild
twist. This Paruppu Urundai Kuzhambu is prepared
from ground dhal mixture with red chillies, asafeotida, and salt. The lentil balls are made out of the ground mixture
and cooked in tamarind sauce in slow to medium flame on stove top. Just to add rich flavor to the dish, I roasted
some Indian spices and ground it with coconut and added to the kuzhambu and it
tasted out of the world.
INGREDIENTS:
Tool Dhal: 1 cup
Bengal gram: 1/4 cup
Red chillies - 8-9
Salt - To taste
Asafoetida - a pinch
Tamarind water (Extracted from soaked tamarind pump) - 4
cups
Sambar Powder -1 tsp
Oil - 4 tsp
To roast and grind:
Asafoetida - small piece (powder could also be used as an
alternate)
Red chillies - 5
Bengal gram - 1 tsp
Urad dhal - 1/2 tsp
Coriander seeds - 1 tsp
(Roast all the above items in little oil and grind with 2
tsp of coconut)
To Temper:
Oil - 1/2 tsp
Mustard seeds - 1 tsp
Curry leaves - few
PREPARATION:
Soak toor dhal+Bengal gram together for an hour.
Meanwhile soak tamarind in warm water for some 15 minutes and
extract the tamarind juice from the pulp
Filter the water out from the dhal after an hour carefully
and grind it along with red chilly, asafoetida, and salt. Care must be taken to drain the water
completely from the soaked mixture before grinding, otherwise the lentil balls
would dissolve while adding to the kuzhambu.
If you feel the mixture is very
solid during grinding part, you can sprinkle little water then and there. Kindly note the salt is to be added only for
the mixture and salt for the gravy needs to be added separately later.
In a heavy bottomed pan, add oil, throw in a tsp of mustard
seeds and when it crackles, add the ground mixture carefully and mix well with
a ladle. After few mins, the mixture
would come to a texture where you could sense the moisture from the mixture is
left, switch off the stove, allow it to cool for sometime, and make into equal
sized balls.
In the meantime, while the mixture is getting cooled, roast
the items given in the section to roast and grind with little oil and grind it smoothly
with 2 tsp of coconut and keep aside.
In a heavy bottomed vessel, pour in the tamarind juice, add
a tsp of sambar powder and salt. Switch
on the stove and allow it to boil for 5-7 minutes until the raw smell goes off.
Lower the flame, gently add 2-3 the
round shaped lentil balls one by one carefully.
When it floats on the top, slowly add the remaining balls one by
one. Do not stir immediately after
adding the balls, allow it to cook. After sometime, you would see the balls start
floating at the top, which means it had cooked.
When you see multiple lentil balls floating, add the ground
mixture and stir well. Let it boil for
few more minutes. Switch off the stove.
Temper the kuzhambu with mustard seeds and curry leaves.
The gravy/kuzhambu can be mixed with steam rice and can be accompanied with a roasted curry.
The lentil balls can also be taken as a side dish to the gravy.
