Receta Vatha Kuzhambu
VATHA KUZHAMBU
Traditional and a staple recipe of South India. Hot spicy tangy gravy served with rice.
Prep time: 10 mins | Cook time: 20-25 mins | Total time: 40 Mins | Serves: 2
Ingredients
- Gooseberry sized Tamarind, soaked in a cup of water (1)
- 3-4 Cups of Water
- 1/2 Cup Chopped Onions (2)
- 2 Tbsp Heaped Sambhar Powder
- To Temper
- 3 Tbsp Sesame Oil
- 1 tsp Mustard seeds
- 2-3 no's Red Chillies
- 1/4 tsp Fenugreek seeds
Few Curry leaves
Instructions
Soak the tamarind in warm water for about 10 minutes. (3) Extract the juice from the pulp by adding about 3 cups of water.
Heat oil in a pan and add mustard seeds. Once they splutter add red chillies, fenugreek seeds and curry leaves.
Add the veggie and sambhar powder. Sauté them for a couple of minute. Make sure not to burn the sambhar powder.
Then add the extracted tamarind concentrate, and allow it to boil for about 15-20 minutes, until the raw smell of the tamarind is gone.
The tamarind concentrate would have reduced almost to half the quantity. Add 1/2 Tbsp of Rice flour (4) and another cup of water and boil it for another 2-3 minutes and turn off the flame.
Notes
Measuring the exact amount of tamarind is intricate. It depends on the quality of the tamarind. This has a significant effect on the taste of the final dish. Aged tamarind just like wine, tastes better. It is less acidic (sour) and its slightly sweet making it a good choice for the dishes. Sometimes you can differentiate old one and a new one by colour, older one being more dark. Yet most of the time you could find the exact amount by a couple of trial and error method. So when you buy tamarind pulp, buy it in bulk so that you would get used to it soon and would avoid the confusion of getting the measurement right every time you get a new pack of tamarind pulp.
Vengaya Vatha kuzhambu is more common in Indian household. Wow! the very name of it makes me drooling. :) But also you can use veggies like ladies finger, yellow pumpkin and drum sticks. Sometimes sundakkai vathal (dried turkey berry), manathakali vathal (black night shade or wonder berry) is also used. Fried papad can also be used.
Soaking the tamarind pulp in warm water loosens the pulp and helps in extracting the juice easily. Extract a thick concentrate. This helps to cook and loose the raw flavour of tamarind faster. You can add water in the end and dilute the gravy if it is too thick.
Rice flour is added to thicken the gravy.