Born into an Iyengar family, it will be such a shame if I don’t make excellent tamarind rice which we call puliyodharai in Tamil. After all, it is our trademark recipe! I got this recipe from my mom, handed down lovingly from my grandma! It starts with making a tamarind paste called pulikaachal and this paste is added to cooked rice to create a yummylicious tangy-spicy tamarind rice.
Spicy Tamarind Rice
Servings 2 people
Ingredients
Ingredients for Paste
- 1 big lemon sized Tamarind (from tamarind block)
- 3/4 cup Gingelly Oil
- 12 pieces Dry Red Chillis
- 1/2 cup Peanuts
- 2 tsp Mustard Seeds
- 1 tsp Urad Dal
- 1 tsp Turmeric Powder
- a few Curry Leaves
- a pinch Asafoetida/ Hing
- 1 tsp Salt
Ingredients to Grind
- 1 tsp Fenugreek seeds/ Methi
- 2 tsp Coriander seeds/ Dhaniya
- 1 tsp White Sesame seeds
Ingredients for Tamarind Rice/ Puliyodharai
- 1 cup Cooked White Rice
Instructions
Preparation
- Soak tamarind in warm water for 15 minutes.
- Meanwhile dry Roast and grind the ingredients to grind.
Paste
- Separate seeds from the soaked tamarind. The extracted tamarind sauce should look like a thick purée.
- Heat oil in a frying pan. Fry raw peanuts until it becomes brown. Remove peanuts and set aside.
- Add mustards in the same pan and once it splutters add asafoetida.
- Add the red chillis, curry leaves, turmeric powder, urad dal, channa dal.
- Once the dals become golden, add thick tamarind sauce and add salt.
- Allow the mixture to boil for sometime until it thickens into a very thick paste. It would take 20-30 minutes.
- Add the fried peanuts and ingredients that were ground on top of this paste.
- This tamarind paste is called "pulikachal" and can be stored in the refrigerator for almost 10 days.
Tamarind Rice/ Puliyodharai
- Separate the grains of the cooked rice such that they don't stick on to each other.
- Add 2 to 3 tbsp of tamarind paste/ pulikaachal on to this cooked rice.
- Lightly mix the paste with rice and serve with Aviyal or yogurt.