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Rice, spice and pachaddi

Easy-to-make and a fine blend of tastes

This curry is also one of the many summer specialities prepared in the homes of Pondicherrians. It is served with plain rice and podalangai pachaddi.

Vegetable assad

Serve 6

Time 30 minutes

Ingredients

Potatoes - 2 big, cut in small pieces
Raw bananas (vajakayi) - 2, cut in small pieces
Brinjals - 4, cut in small pieces
Onion- 1 (for the paste)* and another, cut fine
Garlic - 1 *
Cumin seeds - quarter tsp*
Cinnamon - a small piece
Curry leaves - a few
Chilli powder - half tbsp*
Anis seeds - quarter tsp*
Bay leaf - a small piece
Vadagam - half tsp*
Turmeric - half tsp
Lemon - juice of one
Coconut - half, to extract milk
Ghee - 3 tsp
Salt

* grind to a rough paste

For the vadagam:

Vadagam is a mixture of onions, garlic, gingelly oil and spices, dried in the sun and preserved.

Onions (sambar variety) - half kg
Garlic whole - quarter kg
Cumin seeds (siragam) - 50 gm
Mustard seeds - 50 gm
Fenugreek - (vendiam) - 25 gm
Turmeric powder - half tbsp
Urud dal - white broken - 25 gm
Curry leaves - a handful
Salt - half tbsp
Method

Cut onions and crush garlic with peel. In a big vessel, mix all the ingredients and keep it covered with a thin cloth for three days. Dry the mixture in the sun for two days. Add gingelly oil to the mixture and roll it into small balls (the size of table tennis balls) and dry in the sun for at least two weeks. This vadagam can be stored for many months. The more it is dried in the sun, the better it keeps. The vadagam is used in many dishes in Pondicherry and some chutneys too.

For coconut milk:

Grate half coconut and run it in the mixer with 100 ml of water. Strain the mush for the first milk. Keep aside. Repeat for the second and third milk with 50 ml of water each time.

How to make the curry?

Mix vegetables with salt and keep aside.

In a deep frying pan, heat one tbsp of ghee. Stir-fry vegetables for a few minutes. Keep aside. In a different pan, heat remaining ghee, add cinnamon and bay leaf and fry onion till golden. Add ground spices*. Add curry leaves and fry till ghee separates. Add vegetables and second and third coconut milk. Add turmeric powder. Cover pan. Bring to a boil. Let the curry thicken. Cut flame; add first coconut milk and lemon juice. Serve hot with plain white rice and podalangayi pachaddi.

pachaddi

Serve 6

Time 15 minutes

This pachaddi is cooling and made with snake gourd and thick curd.

Ingredients

Podalangai (snake gourd) - 1 big, cut fine
Thick curd - 1 cup
Red chilly - 1
Curry leaves - a few
Mustard seeds - half tsp
Urud dal - half tsp
Gingely oil - half tbsp
Salt
Method

In a deep frying pan, heat oil, add mustard seeds and urud dal and let them splutter. Add curry leaves, snake gourd and salt. Cover pan and cook till the vegetables are ready. Cool and add curd. Refrigerate and serve cold with vegetable assad and plain white rice.

KETHARI SRIVANJIAM

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