Virundhombal

Sambar powder - perfect homemade sambar powder with few basic ingredients in your kitchen. My mom is an expert in preparing homemade spice powders for kuzhambu varieties. This is also my mom's recipe. My mom taught me that fresh ingredients are all you need to make a good sambar powder. Plus, roasting the spices right before powdering gives the sambar powder more flavour. So  always try to use fresh spices for sambar powder.


Sambar powder tastes good with the perfect blend of spices. For this measurement, you will get around 250 grams of sambar powder which will be good for 2 to 3 months. The first thing about making sambar powder I learned was this : the dals and coriander seeds need to be roasted in the correct heat until you can smell a nice aroma from it. Excess roasted chana dal and coriander seeds will change the taste also. If the spices are not roasted well, then there will be no flavour in the sambar powder. The next important thing is roasting the dried chillies. We hav…

Kuzhi Paniyaram is an easy and healthy tiffin prepared with a few basic ingredients in our kitchen.Once you have decided to prepare kuzhi paniyaram for your dinner, prepare the batter and allow it to ferment for 5 to 7 hours.  You can also ferment the batter overnight and you can prepare a healthy tiffin for your family during weekends. Makes an easy tiffin for your regular week night or weekend breakfast. It's spongy and slightly crispy on the outside and soft on the inside.


In this kuzhi paniyaram recipe, you need idly rice, raw rice, urid dal, fenugreek and other tempering ingredients. Many people prepare kuzhi paniyaram with the dosa batter, but I recommend to grind the batter separately for kuzhi paniyaram. Never skip the fenugreek because it  helps to give you a soft and spongy paniyarams. To add additional flavours I have added fresh grated coconuts, chopped onions and green chillies. For frying the kuzhi paniyaram you can use groundnut oil or gingely oil. Finally, don'…

Methi (Fenugreek) leaves Poriyal - simple and healthy side dish for your lunch with 5 basic ingredients. For methi leaves poriyal, there is no need to chop the greens. Just remove the leaves from the stem and wash it well for 3 to 5 times because it has more mud and sand when compared to other greens. The aroma in the kitchen was very nice when we saute the methi leaves. Methi leaves poriyal tastes good when made with fresh leaves. I recommend making it the same day, but if you have busy mornings just pluck the leaves and keep it in a ziploc bag.


How to make perfect methi leaves poriyal

The trick is to make a perfect methi leaves poriyal is use plenty of onions, coconut, cooked toor dal and finally a tbsp of ghee. Adding a tbsp of ghee in the final stage is my mom's tip and it boosts the methi leaves flavour also. For any keerai poriyal dishes, we have to saute the greens frequently for uniform cooking. Do not pour water for cooking because your poriyal will turn mushy. Just sprin…

Snake gourd kootu is a healthy side dish for your lunch. We have a wide variety of high water content vegetables like bottle gourd, ash gourd, snake gourd, ridge gourd etc. All these vegetables contain eighty percent water and keep you hydrated the whole day. These water content vegetables are a popular choice for kootu, sambar and thayir pachadi. Try to include any one of these vegetables weekly, twice in your regular diet.


Snake gourd kootu is a wonderful side dish for pulikuzhambu. Kootu is often prepared with moong dal or toor dal. But for this snake gourd kootu we add chana dal. I like the crunchy dals in the kootu which adds a beautiful colour also. Most of our kootu or poriyal dishes we add the ground coconut paste, which adds flavour, colour and taste also.

Check out my other kootu recipes here
White Pumpkin (Ash gourd) kootuYellow Pumpkin kootuChow Chow(chayote) kootuRaw Papaya kootuParuppu Keerai kootuManathakkali Keerai kootuCabbage Potato kootu

Ven pongal - many of our favourite weekend breakfast dishes. Ven pongals are easy to prepare, but they must be prepared with proper measurements to get perfect results.


Start your ven pongal by  roasting the dals in a pan. There are two ways to roast the dals, but my favourite is dry roasting the dals well until you can smell a nice aroma from the moong dal that produces a nice flavour to the entire dish. It won't take longer than a minute to roast the dals, so do not omit the step. After roasting the dals we have to add it to the raw rice and cook them in a pressure cooker. Like many of my pressure cooker recipes, I recommend to soak the rice and dal for 20 minutes for perfect results. Next, we will see the water level for venpongal. Usually for venpongal, use 3 to 3.5 cups of water for 1 cup of raw rice, but you may need to practice the amount your pressure cooker requires for the particular dishes. If you add more water for venpongal, it gives you stickier rice, which may take…

Coconut curry leaves chutney (thuvaiyal) easy and healthy thuvaiyal for your lunch with a plate of warm rice. We prepare different types of kuzhambu everyday for lunch. But sometimes it will be boring to cook or  you feel tired when you do not have energy in your body. In that situation, this quick thuvaiyal is the best one for your lunch. The thuvaiyal is mixed with the hot rice and served with appalam and sundakkai vathal. We prepare this thuvaiyal during fasting days like shasthi, kiruthikai and sathurthi. After the fasting is over, we mix the cooked rice (pacharisi sadham) with a tbsp of this curry leaves chutney  swirled with a few tablespoons of gingely oil.


This coconut curry leaves thuvaiyal includes ingredients like grated coconuts, curry leaves, asafoetida, tamarind and red chillies. All the ingredients are handy and you can grind it within 5 minutes. For this chutney, the only work you have to do is grating the coconut. There are many frozen grated coconuts or coconut powd…

White vegetable kurma - one of my favourite side dishes for idiyappam. For idiyappam or aapam i prefer kurmas which are flavoured mildly. This white vegetable is one among those categories and also it is pretty easy to make. This kurma is also good for parotta and chapathi.


To prepare restaurant quality kurma at home, you should follow some basic instructions.
The first thing for these coconut based gravies is the good quality coconut. Because it not only adds taste to kurma, but also helps to bring the correct consistency. In this white vegetable kurma, I have added both coconut paste and coconut milk. The coconut milk brightens the gravy and the coconut paste grounded along with green chillies and other spices adds flavour to the dish.
The second thing is using the spices in correct measures. After experimenting many kurma, I found this technique. If you add any one of the spices in excess, then the kurma will taste bad with the particular flavour. For example, if you add more cl…