Tamarind Rice Tamil Style \ Pulisadham \ Puliodharai

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.

Broken Wheat Rava Kesari \ Godhuma Rava Kesari

Rava Kesari is the most common sweet as we all know. I just wanted to try out the same with the broken wheat rava. Its almost similar to the Sathyanarayana Swami pooja Prasadam. I followed the same method of preparing Kesari except that I cooked the broken wheat initially before mixing it with the Sugar Syrup. As broken wheat is highly nutritious, this Kesari is definitely a very healthy sweet for everyone. Though it takes little extra time than the normal Kesari, its worth for its benefits.

Ingredients

Broken wheat / Dalia - 1 Cup

Sugar - 1 Cup

Kesari Powder / Food Colour Powder - 1 pinch

Elachi / Cardamom Seeds / Elakai - 4 or 5

Pista Seeds - 5 or 6 crushed.

Dry Grapes / Raisins - 1 tbsp

Cashew Nuts - 2 tbsp

Ghee - 3 tbsp

Method

• Roast the Broken Wheat Rava with little ghee for couple of minutes and cook it with some water.
• Mean time, in a thick vessel, make a sugar syrup by adding Sugar and little water. Add the Kesar food colour, cardamom powder into the Syrup. Keep it ready.
• When the Broken wheat is fully cooked, then slowly add the Sugar Syrup into the kadai. Keep stirring the Kesari constantly in order to avoid any lumps.
• Add the crushed pista powder and 1 tbsp of ghee into the Kesari. Mix them well.
• Do the cooking on a medium flame. Roast the Cashew nuts and raisins with little bit of ghee and add them into the Kesari.
• Add the remaining ghee into the Kesari and mix it upside down uniformly.
• Now the Kesari is ready for Neivadhyam.

Tips / Variations

You can add more sugar and ghee according to your taste. If its for a party or festival, you can generously add more ghee to the Kesari to make it richer. If you have some saffron at home, you can add 1/2 tsp of Saffron flowers into the Kesari. This would give us a nice aroma and the taste of the Kesari would be unique.