Enthaligai: PARUPPU URUNDAI KUZHAMBU - LENTIL BALLS COOKED IN TAMARIND SAUCE

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.