Pulincurry – Trissur Style

Hello friends… hope you all had a great weekend. This blog has been dormant for the past two weeks or so as we were on a Europe trip. We had a wonderful time visiting Paris, Switzerland, Venice, Florence, Rome and Vatican City. Please check out some pictures here. We had the pleasure of tasting some amazing dishes during our trip. I will be trying to recreate some of those in the coming days and if they turn out good I will be sure to post the recipes here.

                Okay, I guess that is enough of boring you with my trip. Let me come to today’s recipe. Pulincurry is prepared with toor dal and any one of a variety of vegetables depending on what is seasonal. The usual veggies that are used are winter melon, unripe pappaya, cucumber (vellarikka), tomatoes, taro root and drum sticks. You can replace tamarind with mangoes as the souring agent if you are using cucumber or drumsticks. Jackfruit seeds / chakka kuru also goes well with cucumber and drumsticks. This recipe is from my friend Preetha who is from Trissur. I have already posted few of her recipes here and a few others are on their way to get posted. In fact all the Trissur recipes in this blog are her contributions. As I have mentioned before, she is an expert cook when it comes to nadan dishes and I’m sure anybody who has tasted her dishes at least once would vouch for that. I have been fortunate enough to be able to taste her yummy dishes many a times and my favorites among them are her fish curry, nadan chicken curry, and sambar. I hope you will like this recipe.

Ingredients  ( Serves 4 – 5)

Winter melon – Around 2.5 cups, cut into medium cubes

Toor dal / thuvara parippu – 3/4 cup

Turmeric powder – 1/2 tsp

Chilly powder – 1/2 tsp

Curry leaves – 1 sprig

Grated coconut – 1/2 cup

Cumin seeds – 1/4 tsp

Tamarind – Small lemon-sized (Soak it in warm water and extract the juice)

Salt – To taste

For the seasoning

Mustards – 1/4 – 1/2 tsp

Dry red chillies – 2

Curry leaves – A few

Fenugreek seeds / uluva – 2 pinches

Oil – 2 tsp

Method

1. Grind the coconut with cumin seeds to a fine paste. Set aside.

2. Pressure cook the toor dal in enough water (around 2.5 – 3 cups) for 1 whistle. Add the cubed winter melon, enough salt, turmeric powder, chilly powder and a few curry leaves. Cook covered until they are done (or you can pressure cook it for 1 whistle if you are using kumbalanga). Open immediately. Add the tamarind juice. If the gravy is very thick, add little water. It should have a medium consistency. When it comes to a boil, add the ground coconut. Mix well, add a few curry leaves and bring to a boil. Switch off.

3. Heat oil in a small pan. Splutter the mustard seeds and fry dry red chillies and fenugreek seeds. When the fenugreek seeds turn brown, add a few curry leaves. Pour this tadka over the curry. Set aside for 10 mts. Serve with rice.

Love

Maya