Delicious Menthyam Molaga Arachuvitta kozhambu Vegetable curry made with fresh coconut and mildly spiced with fenugreek, coconut and chilies.
Weekend is coming and we are going to attend the birthday party of my hubby’s friend’s son. My hubby and his friend are friends from his school days; they studied in same school, college. And when his friend came to do Ph.d here in US, my hubby followed too. So it is a very long friendship. I have lost in touch with most of my friends, and only few are still in contact. Hope my son and daughter will enjoy the birthday party tomorrow.
Day before yesterday, Martha Stewart made an awkward comment that food bloggers are not experts in one of her interview with Bloomberg TV. I don’t know what expert she is? Does doing a cooking show or knitting show make you an authority to blame food bloggers? Sorry Martha, you are not expert in any sense.
We as food blogger, do everything including shopping, cooking, photographing, cleaning and also pushing to taste test on poor hubby and children.
We don’t have any cleaning crew, food photographing crew or food stylist.
Yes we adapt recipes from others, and that don’t means we are simply whipping up everything just sitting in front of computer.
I love cooking also love to discover the taste of other cuisine in my little kitchen. I am going boycott all products that have her name on it.
Comes to this recipe, it is one of traditional recipes of Tamil Iyer cuisine. Also one of mom’s favorite curry.
She would make very often sambhar, pulissery and parippu urundai kuzhambu
I wanted to try this recipe for long time, and since mom is not around anymore, I asked dad about this recipe, and he gave me a vague description. However the amount of Fenugreek and chili used was not very clear.
Finally searching in Google for a while I got this recipe. First time, while taste testing I found that I need to add some tomato paste to balance the bitterness of fenugreek.
The next time I increased the amount of coconut and also used two tomatoes. Trust me it reminds be my mom’s cooking. You can call them sister to sambhar, another spicy gravy but without coconut.
This curry goes well rice or dosa (south Indian pancake) and feels free to adjust the chili amount to be tolerable to your heat level. I won’t suggest that you to reduce the amount of fenugreek, as it isthe star of this recipe. For making this curry you can use any vegetables, but since I had only potato, onion, and carrot are in my hand I used those. It gels well with any vegetables. If you are person who use coconut in teaspoon and tablespoon then this won’t suit you. It requires a half of fresh coconut or 1 ½ cup grated coconut.
I am a coconut lover who loves to dump coconut as much as possible in all the recipes. Try it if you like coconut curries.
Here comes the recipe.
Menthyam Molaga Arachuvitta kozhambu /Thengai Aracha kuzhambu / Spicy tangy coconut curry with vegetables
Ingredients
For Roasting and grinding
- 2 teaspoon Urad dal/ Spilt black gram
- 1 teaspoon Menthayam/Methi/ Fenugreek seeds
- 2-3 Red chili Reduce or increase depending upon your spice level
- 1 ½ cup freshly grated coconut or half of fresh coconut
- 1 teaspoon oil use coconut or olive oil
For curry
- 1 potato chopped into cubes
- 1 carrot chopped into cubes
- 2 to tomatoes chopped into cubes
- 1 onion Chopped into cubes
- ¼ th of capsicum chopped into cubes
- Lemon sized ball of tamarind
- 3 cup water
- ¼ teaspoon turmeric powder
- ¾ teaspoon salt or to taste
For seasoning
- 1 teaspoon oil use coconut or olive oil
- ½ teaspoon mustard seeds
- 1 sprig of curry leaves
- 1 red chili
Instructions
- In a microwave safe bowl add ½ cup of water and lemon sized tamarind and microwave high for 15 seconds. Extract the juice and set aside.
- In a small skillet heat 1 teaspoon oil and add urad dal, fenugreek seeds and red chili and fry until it release aroma. Make sure not to burn the fenugreek seeds as it can result in the bitterness of curry. Add grated coconut to this and grind into a fine paste with ¼ cup water.
- Cook the chopped vegetables with 2 cup water with turmeric and salt until it is done well.
- To this add extracted tamarind juice and boil for another 2 minutes
- Then add the ground coconut chili fenugreek paste and cook for another 3 minutes.
- In a small skillet heat 1 teaspoon of oil and add mustard seeds and red chili and curry leaves, when mustard seeds starts spluttering switch off and add this to prepared curry.
- Enjoy with warm rice or dosa
Notes
Nutrition
1
This is Swathi ( Dr. Ambujom Saraswathy Ph.D) from Zesty South Indian Kitchen who loves to explore cuisines from all over the world. Whenever possible I try to to give an Indian touch to several of the world cuisine, and has weakness for freshly baked bread. All the recipes you see here are created by me and approved after taste-test by my family.
Priya says
Love it! This is my favorite sambar and the one I make whenever we have guests over!
maha says
GRAVY LUKS SO SPICY N HOT DEAR..
sowmya says
I love freshly ground paste in sambhar.. this looks really yum !! love it
Hema says
Delicious kuzhambu, and I agree with your views dear..
Preeti Tamilarasan says
sounds like an interesting curry..
sona says
Looks delicious and flavorful.
shama says
flavourful curry
latha says
Very new recipe for me. I have never heard about this. wish to give a try sometime.
I love the new look of your blog.
BTW I was at Trivandrum during y last hols and I was at your fav. place Sree Padmanabha temple.
Thought of you so much on that day:).
Ash-foodfashionparty says
Love the authentic feel to the recipe. Arachivattu kozhumbu is my favorite with rice. Love it, a comfort food.
Sangeetha says
tangy coconut gravy makes me drool, love it...
Happys Cook says
yummy kuzhambu....spicy coconut curry...
Suja Manoj says
The recipe is new to me,looks delicious..perfect to serve with rice.
Roha says
wow..!! Super yum yum..!!
Kamalika says
Sounds drool worthy.....
Asiya Omar says
Wow! Thanks for sharing. Soon going to try.
Balvinder says
Two thumbs up for whatever you said about bloggers. And you know what even the chefs adapt the recipes, they are not always the originators. Swathi I love spicy and tangy curries and I like this one too with coconut.
Pooja says
I really liked the lead story. The recipe sounds awesome. And what a fantastic format of presentation. Will certainly try this.
Sayantani says
this is superb. love the flavours of kuzhambu
Torviewtoronto says
I agree with you about Martha she talks as if she invented everything
This curry looks superb
Resna nishad says
Really a delicious curry.. well explained thank you for sharing
indu srinivasan says
delicious droolworthy tempting mouth watering kuzhambu.
gayathri says
Delicious curry..
Pam Capone says
beautiful dish - I love curry
Deepa says
Healthy and tasty looking kozambu. Excellent preparation.
Deepa