Tamarind Rice is one of the favourites in our household. I followed my mom's style while making the powder for the tamarind rice this time. She generally makes Pulikachal first and mixes the rice with the spicy, yummy Pulikachal..But I made a simple tamarind paste and made the tamarind rice with the tamarind paste and spicy powder..which is an easier method for me.Some people like to have this tamarind rice just with papads, appalams. In some household, they make Aviyal and tamarind rice as a combo..But the taste is unique in all ways.
Ingredients
Sona Masoori Rice - 2 Cups
Thick Tamarind juice - 4 Cups
Jaggery - 1 tsp
Olive Oil - 2 tbsp for tempering.
Gingelly Oil / Nalla Yennai - 3 tbsp
Hing - 1 Big Dash
Salt - To Taste
Urad Dal / Mina Pappu / Ulutham Paruppu - 1 tbsp
Channa Dal / Kadalai Paruppu - 1 tbsp
Peanuts / Groundnuts / Kadalai - 2 Handful
Powder
Coriander Seeds - 2 tbsp
Vendhayam / Methi Seeds / Menthilu - 1 tsp
Black Pepper Seeds - 6 or 7 seeds
Dry Red Chillies - 5 or 6
Hing / Asafoetida - 1 Dash
Method
- Cook the Sona Masoori Rice either in a pressure cooker for 2 whistles or in an electric cooker. Spread the rice over a big tray or vessel and put some oil into it just to make them separate. Let the rice cool down.
- Mean time, in a kadai, add the extracted tamarind juice of 4 cups, 2 tsp of oil, hing, 1 tsp of jaggery and make a paste like a kuzhambu without raw smell.
- For making the powder, fry the ingredients with little oil in a kadai and grind them into a fine powder. Keep it aside.
- For tempering, add Olive oil in a kadai. Add the ingredients for tempering and roast them in low flame.
- Let the channa dal, urad dal and groundnuts get roasted to golden brown.
- Transfer all the contents from the kadai on top of the rice in the tray or big vessel.
- Add the tamarind juice little by little. Add required amount of salt also and mix the tamarind rice uniformly without mashing the rice.
- Add the grounded spicy powder on the rice and mix them carefully in all directions up and down.
- Add gingelly oil into the tamarind rice too.
- Keep adding more tamarind paste and the spicy powder into the rice while mixing as required.
- After mixing all the contents thoroughly, the spicy and yummy tamarind rice is ready to eat. But its always a good idea to eat the tamarind rice at least an hour after its preparation. This is mainly for the spices, tamarind paste to blend together and settle down with the rice perfectly.
- Even on the next day, the leftover tamarind rice tastes very good. Its not required to store the leftover rice in the fridge.
