Indian Style Tamarind Rice Paste or Puli Kaichal

At home, mother often makes Tamarind rice paste that can be stored and kept in the refrigerator for weeks. It is like a pickled spice paste with all the wonderful spicy tangy ingredients that can be prep up when you are in a hurry. When this paste is made a head, it can often be mixed with piping hot rice. It is a must to use gingerly oil or 'Nallanai' which we call in Tamil. This type of oil is available in any Indian store. The amount of oil, red chilies and salt used may seem to be quite a lot, but they work as a preservative and flavor enhancer that keeps well in the fridge without getting spoilt. Here I have given ingredients and method to make the paste. Some other day, I will post how to mix the paste with the rice with other extra ingredients. You may also like to visit my YouTube video on how to make this paste https://youtu.be/1vbXTq23UPs. I hope you will try this at home. 

Indian Style Tamarind Rice Paste or Puli Kaichal

INGREDIENTS: 

Tamarind - lime size

Turmeric powder - 1 teaspoon

Water - 3 cups

Jaggery/ brown sugar - 1 teaspoon

TO MAKE SPICE POWDER:

Channa dal - 1 tablespoon

Fenugreek seeds - 1/2 teaspoon

Dry red chili - 1

TO TEMPER:

Gingerly oil - 1/4 cup

Mustard - 1 teaspoon

Urad dal - 1 teaspoon

Channa dal - 2 tablespoons

Dry red chilies - 15 (broken to small pieces) (reduce it if you don't like spicy food)

Asafoetida - 1/2 teaspoon

Curry leaves - 2 sprigs

METHOD:

1. First, take tamarind into the size of lime. Adding 3 cups of water to the tamarind and let it soak for 5 minutes. After that, squeeze tamarind in the water, and strain the tamarind water and discard the pulp.

2. In a pan, add a drop of gingerly oil, 1 tablespoon of channa dal, 1/2 teaspoon fenugreek seeds. Roast the ingredients until golden brown. Lastly, add 1 dry red chili and fry for 1 minute only as you don't want to burn the chili. Grind it to fine powder. 

3. Heat a pan with gingerly oil, add mustard and allow it to sputter. Then, add urad dal and channa dal, allow them to become light brown colour. After that, add broken pieces of dry chilies, asafoetida and curry leaves. 

4. Immediately, add the tamarind water into the tempered ingredients. Let the tamarind water boil and reduce to half.

5. When it has reduce to half, add salt (I added 1 tablespoon), jaggery or brown sugar, turmeric powder and all the grind spice powder. Let the concoction boil and thicken further. At this stage, add another 2 tablespoons of gingerly oil. Boil for 5 minutes after adding oil. When oil starts floating on the surface and it has become semi- thick paste, switch off the flame. 

semi- thick paste

6. Cool this paste and store it in an air-tight container. Keep in the refrigerator. 

Thank you

Abby