Yesterday, I visited my uncle and aunt, Mr.& Mrs. N.S.Ananthakrishnan.
While I was getting ready to leave, I remembered that they have a Curry leaf tree in their backyard.
Since curry leaf is supposed to be pesticide loaded, I try to not buy it from the shop.
When I asked them for some curry leaf, they nearly gave me the whole tree!!!
Now I had to do something with all the curry leaf!!
Two preparations came to my mind: Karuvepilai podi and Karuvepila kozhambu.
Though I have made the latter, I have never made the former.
And I got the recipe for Karuvepila podi from my aunt's mom. Her recipe was simple with just pepper, jeera and green gram dal. When I called my mother-in-law and another aunt for their recipes, they both advised me to not use Green gram dal. They wanted me to use urad dal and channa dal. Both of them also had included asafoetida and red chilly in their recipe.
Below is the photo of the recipe given by my aunt's mom.
Karuvepila podi is a lovely fragnant spicy powder, which is usually had with hot rice and a dollop of ghee.
Before you decide to make this recipe, a word of caution. Please make this powder only when you have time. It CANNOT / MUST NOT be made in a hurry. You will know why, when you read the procedure.
Ingredients:
Fresh Curry leaf - 4 cups to yield 3 cups of dried curry leaf
Urad dal -1/4 cup
Channa dal / kadala parippu - 1/4 cup
Red chilly - 6
Pepper corn - 1 tbsp
Jeera - 1 tsp
Salt
Asafoetida slab - 1 cm radius ball (or) 1 heaped tbsp powder
Remove the leaf from the stalk.
Wash the curry leaf well and dry it by laying it on a cloth and placing it under the fan.
Heat a heavy vessel / kadai till it becomes very hot.
Turn off flame and put in all the curry leaf into the hot kadai.
Mix well and keep turning the curry leaf as you do not want it to burn. We need to try and retain the green color as much as possible.
Once the vessel cools down, remove all the curry leaf from it and repeat.
Heat the vessel, turn off the flame, and add the curry leaf.
Repeat this process until your curry leaf dries out and can be easily powdered by hand.
Heat another kadai and dry fry separately the dals, pepper, jeera and red chillies.
Then heat 1 tsp oil and fry the asafoetida slab till it becomes golden.
Once everything cools to room temperature, first grind the asafoetida with very less salt.
If using Asafoetida powder, omit this step.
Then add the fried dals, red chilly, pepper and jeera.
If you are using asafoetida powder, add the salt and powder now.
Once ground, add the dried curry leaf.
Taste the powder and add more salt, if necessary.
Transfer to an air tight container and store.
Serve with hot rice and ghee.
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