Tamarind Rice

South Indian cuisine is my personal favourite, when it comes to Indian food. I love making sambhar, idli and coconut chutney. My coconut chutney has in fact become very popular in family. However, this is my first attempt at tamarind rice today. And it turned out great. My mom me and my dad all loved it, hence sharing the recipe with you.

I had heard of tamarind rice before but never ate it anywhere until recently when I saw it in the menu of a South Indian restaurant and ordered it. It came with vegetable raita and some kind of spinach curry. Didn’t like the curry, raita was okay, but the star was tamarind rice. I instantly fell in love with it, and wanted to give it a try immediately.

With my tasting capabilities, and also with the help from my mom I analysed the ingredients, added some of mine and came up with the below recipe. And it tastes just fine. J

Ingredients:

Boiled Rice

½ cup tamarind pulp

Salt and red chilli powder to taste

¼ teaspoon coriander powder.

Pinch of asafoetida

¼ teaspoon each of fenugreek seeds, mustard seeds

1 ½ table spoon Gram Daal/ Chane ki daal

Few curry leaves

1 whole dried red chilli

2 Tablespoon oil

3-4 tablespoon water

Recipe:

In a pan add oil, on low flame leave it to warm up for few seconds.

Add fenugreek seeds, mustard seeds, whole red chilli and daal, and roast till daal has turned lightly brown. Keep flame medium.

Now add curry leaves, salt, chilli, coriander powder, asafoetida and sauté for a couple of minutes. Its ready when you are able to smell curry leaves in the air.

Add Tamarind pulp along with water and leave it simmer on lowest flame for atleast 5-6 minutes. Its ready when fenugreek seeds has puffed up, soft in testure and so is daal.

Mix some of this tamarind masala with boiled rice, quantity will depend as per your taste. Refrigerate the remaining masala for later use. Eat it with masala papad or vegetable raita.