1. Pressure cook 1 cup of  toor dal with 2 +1/2 glass of water. To this add hing, turmeric powder and potatoes. Let it cook till it reaches 4-5 whistles. Take the dal out and remove the potatoes and keep it separate. Mash the dal to smooth paste.

2. Heat pan and roast the ingredients given for making sambar powder. Once done cool and grind them to powder.


3. Heat pan and add oil & ghee, do the seasoning one by one. To this add small onion saute for few mins. Then add carrot, green chillies and tomatoes. Saute for few more mins. Then add salt, turmeric powder,hing  and keep stirring for few more mins.

4. Now add sambar powder and stir for a min. To this add 1  glass of water and let it cook. Once it starts to boil add potato and dal and let it cook until the dal starts to bubble on the sides. Now add little ghee and garnish with coriander leaves and switch off the flame.

5. Serve this hot with Idli, pongal ,medhu vadai, Idiyappam Or Pongal.

1. Fry all the above mentioned ingredients in a pan one by one and keep it separate. Then grind them well in a blender adding little water and kept it thick.


2. Then again in a pan add some oil and do the seasoning mentioned above to this add small onion,drumstick and garlic and fry it well. To this add the tamarind water and let it cook for few mins. Then add hing,salt and turmeric powder. Let it boil for 2 mins.

3. To this add the paste made before and mix it well and let it cook for 15-20 mins.

4. The oil should float on top that shows the dish is done. Let it boil till the oil oozes.

1. Soak chickpeas/ kondai kadalai  over night and boil them for 10 mins in a cooker and keep it separate.


2. Now in a hot kadai/ pan add oil and fry small onion,tomato,garlic one by one and collect in a plate. To this dry fry grated coconut and keep everything separate in a cup.

3. In blender make a masala of this by adding chilly powder,dhania powder and salt. Add little water if required.
4. In a pan add oil once hot saute jeera then fry the remaining small onion,garlic,curry leaves and add the masala and saute for 5 mins. Now add turmeric powder and check for salt.

5. To this add  kondai kadali/chickpeas and add 2 glass of water and let it boil for 10 mins. When done switch it off. Finally add coconut milk and mix everything well.(if you add coconut milk and let it boil it may curdle so always switch off the curry and add coconut milk,the heat in curry itself will let the coconut milk blend)

6. Now serve it with hot white rice or Idiyappam. The kuzhambu taste so good and very mild,kids will love for sure.

1.In a kadai add oil and start saute dry red chillies, once they turn lite brown remove them otherwise it may burn dark. Keep it separate. To the same oil add mustard seed,channa dal,jeera,dhania seeds and saute it for a min and remove it. Let everything cool.

2. Now wash and dry the gongura leaves. Make sure they are dry otherwise they wont stay fresh for long. If the leaves are dry then pachadi will stay for a week or more.
3. Now add little oil and fry the leaves for few mins till they become soft, now collect in a bowl. let it cool.

4. Now add all the fry items in a blender and make a coarse powder out of them. To this finally add gongura leaves and blend them in pulse mode for few mins. The leaves should be 95% done but not completely like paste.

5. Collect them all in a bowl. Now in a pan heat oil and add the seasoning mentioned above and pour the tempering on top of the gongura item and mix everything well. Now add salt and see how it taste. Yummy tasty pachadi is ready to eat. Serve it hot with white rice on ghee as topping. Yumm its so droll worthy dish.

NOTES:
1. Adding hing and garlic is very important so do not skip this step. They give so much flavor to this dish.
2. Usually gongura leaf has a nice sour taste to it,if you find the leaves less sour you can add little bit tamarind. Here in USA the leaves don't taste the same all time. So test the taste and add tamarind piece if you need it.
3. Add oil as mentioned in this recipe,this helps in keeping the pachadi for more than a week. You can store in fridge too.
4. Serve it with rice,dosa,idly or chapathi. They taste excellent.

1. In a bowl place tamarind,pour hot water and let it soak for ten mins. Make pulp out of it and filter it using strainer and keep it separate.

2. Chop the vendakkai/okra to small pieces and slit garlic to two.

3. Now in kadai/pan pour oil and when hot add the seasoning mentioned above and saute them. To this add small onion,garlic and saute for few more mins.

4. Now add vendakkai/okra/ladysfinger and fry for 3-4 mins. When they get tender add tamarind paste and let it cook for 5 mins.

5. To this add turmeric powder,chilly powder,sambar powder,hing and salt. Add water as per your requirement and let it cook.
6. When the oil starts to bubble out and when the kulambu gets thick, just sprinkle the sombhu /fennel powder on top and stir it well. Switch it off in a min. I see big taste difference when I add this powder,if you don't like you can omit. But try once and feel the taste.
7. Serve this hot with white rice and some curry like potato fry,brinjal fry or any kootu variety.

1. In a pan fry groundnut,sesame,dhania seed,dry red chillies,grated coconut,fenugreek,onion,garlic one by one, Keep it separate. Let it cool down. Then make a paste of them in blender, add little water if you need.


2. Cut the brinjal to four slice as shown in pic and keep it separate.

3. Now in a pan add oil(use more oil than usual for this particular dish)do the seasoning mentioned above.
4. To this add brinjal and fry till the brinjal is half cooked. Now add the tamarind paste and let it cook for few mins. To this add turmeric powder,hing and salt. Let it cook for 3 mins.

5. Now add the grounded paste and add 2 cups of water and let it cook for 15-20 mins or until the oil starts to ooze out.


6. Whole house will smell yumm. Adjust water according to your required thickness. It shouldn't be watery,its usually thick like shown in pic.

7. Serve it hot with white rice and some potato fry or cabbage fry. Another version of this is dry fry gutti vankai fry. Check it out and that goes well with sambhar ,rasam or any kind of main dish.

1. First take ridge gourd cute the ends,then peel the skin with a peeler.  Wash them and chop to small pieces. Now keep it separate.

2. In pan do the seasoning mentioned above, to this add onion,garlic and green chillies. Saute them well, then add chopped ridge gourd/beerakai or peerkanga and stir them well for few mins. Then add tomato and stir for another few mins.

3. Now when they are soft enough add the dry ingredients like turmeric pow,chilly pow,coriander pow,fennel pow and salt. Mix them well. Now add 1/2 glass of water or more and let it cook for 5-7 mins. To this add freshly chopped coriander leaves.

4. Either serve with rice or roti. If serving with roti change the fennel seed powder to garam masala to get some north taste in food. I love it a lot. Enjoy with hot rice or chapathi.

1. In a pan do the seasoning mentioned above, then to that add the small onions and saute them well. To this add tamarind pulp water and let it cook till the raw smell is gone.


2. Then add chilly powder, coriander powder, turmeric powder and salt and let it boil well. To this add hing and see that oil oozes out. You can see the kuzhambhu becoming dark brown in color and oil coming out on top. It should be thick gravy. To this mildly add the fenugreek powder and let it mix well for few more mins and switch it off.

3. Yummy tasty vendhaya kuzhambhu is ready. Serve it with hot white rice and I love to pair it with bottle gourd kootu(Sorakkai Kootu) and enjoy with some potato curry too.

1. In a pan add oil, to this do the seasoning mentioned above. Then saute garlic,onion for some time. Then to this add vendakkai/ladys finger for few mins.

2. Now take tamarind piece and soak it rice washed water, that means wash the rice and add this water to tamarind piece. This is called mandi in chettinad side.

3. Then add tomato and let it cook for 2 mins. When the ladys finger is half cooked add the tamarind pulp. Let it cook till the raw smell from tamarind is gone .It needs 10 mins.


4. Now serve this with white rice or with curd rice or main kulambhu. Tasty vendakkai mandi is ready.

1. In a cooker boil 4-5 tsp of dal in 1 1/2 cups of water. When its done add chopped tomatoes,hing,turmeric powder and mix it well.

2. Now in a pan add ghee and do the seasoning mentioned above, then to this add the dal mix and let it bubble up.

3. Now squeeze the juice out of 3-4 orange and store it separate.

4. Now in a blender add the mentioned ingredient under rasam powder and grind them smooth or coarse. Then add to the mix. Let it boil for few mins. To this finally add fresh orange juice and stir it well. Add salt and garnish with coriander leaves and switch it off.



5. I served it with cauliflower pakoda/cauliflower fry. Love this rasam so much. Enjoy the sweet,tangy rasam with hot white rice.

1. In a pressure cooker boil tomato and dal together. To this add turmeric powder and let it boil for 5-6 whistles.

2. In a pan dry fry the ingredients shown above for rasam powder, then powder them in a blender.


3. Now in a pan do the seasoning mentioned above, to this add the dal &tomato mix and let it boil for few mins. To this add rasam powder and let it boil for few more mins. If the tomato is not ripe enough use little tamarind paste. Then add 1 glass of water and let it boil for few more min. To this add jaggery and salt and  stir it well. Udupi rasam are usually thick when compared to tamil rasam and use of jaggery is must in Karnataka dishes.Then garnish with finely chopped coriander leaves.

4. Serve it hot with beans usili or brinjal fry.