Karuveppilai Kuzhambu | Curry leaves Kulambu

Karuveppilai Kuzhambu, a spicy, tangy and delicious  tamarind based curry with curry leaves as the main ingredient. Curry leaves is known as "Karuveppilai in tamil and it's extensively used in south indian cooking and health care especially for hair growth. Eating a few raw curry leaves daily would benefit your hair growth in a tremendous way and also it's believed to postpone the greying of hair.  

Ok, now coming to the recipe, I like curry leaves flavor a lot and use them daily in tempering sambar, chutney and all side dishes. Apart from that, whenever I have excess curry leaves, I would make curry leaves chutney or podi to store. 

Curry leaves podi makes an excellent side dish for idli and dosa and comes handy on a busy day when I'm pressed for time in the early morning. This Curry leaves kulambu is my recent favorite and I tried it for the first time a couple of months back only and already made it for a handful of times. It's so flavorful and tastes great with hot rice and drizzle of ghee.  Now let's check out how to make this yummy curry leaves curry.

Karuveppilai Kuzhambu

Preparation Time : 10 mins | Cooking Time : 30 mins | Serves : 4 
Recipe Category: Curry | Recipe Cuisine: Indian
Karuveppilai,Curry leaves, Kuzhambu,Curry,Gravy,Karuveppilai Kulambu,Curry leaves Kuzhambu Karuveppilai Kuzhambu, a spicy, tangy and delicious tamarind based curry with curry leaves as the main ingredient. Curry leaves is known as "Karuveppilai in tamil and it's extensively used in south indian cooking.

Sandhiya https://www.facebook.com/SandhiyasCookbook https://www.instagram.com/sandhiyascookbook/

Ingredients

Tamarind - a small lemon size 

Garlic - 10 

Red chili powder - 3/4 tsp

Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp

Coriander powder - 1 tsp

Salt - to taste

To Temper

Oil - 1 & 1/2 tbsp

Mustard and Urad dal - 1/2 tsp

Curry leaves - few

To roast &  grind

Curry leaves - 1/2 cup(tightly packed)

Onion -1/2

Tomato - 1(small)

Garlic - 4 

Cumin seed -1/2 tsp

Fenugreek seed - 1/4 tsp

Coconut - 1/4 cup 

Oil - 1/2 tsp

Procedure

First let's roast and grind the masala. Chop the onions and tomato into small pieces and keep everything for roast to ready. Heat the kadai with 1/2 tsp of oil, add the fenugreek and cumin seed, let it splutter and then add the onion and garlic. Saute till the onions are translucent.

Next add the curry leaves and saute till it shrinks and then add the tomatoes and coconut. Cook till the tomatoes are soft and let it cool a bit.

Soak the tamarind in 1 cup of water for 30 mins. Then transfer the roasted ingredients into mixie jar and grind into smooth paste by adding water little by little.

In an another kadai, heat the oil for tempering and then temper the ingredients listed under "To Temper" and then add the garlic and the curry leaves paste.

Extract the juice from the soaked tamarind and add into the kadai. Next add the spices(turmeric, red chili and coriander powder) and salt. Mix it well. Adjust the consistency of the kuzhambu by adding more or less of water by your liking.

Let it comes to boil and simmer it until the oil floats on the top.

Tasty Karuvepillai Kuzhambu is ready. 

Related: How to make Curry leaves Podi

For more curries and veggies, check out my collections

Related: How to make Curry leaves Chutney

Notes:

• Depends on how vibrant the curry leaves are, the kuzhambu color changes.
• Adjust the spice level according to your taste. The given quantity is on little spicer side.
• Make sure to cook the curry till the oil floats on the top for great taste
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Curry leaves Chutney | Karuvepillai Chutney | Chutney Recipe

Curry leaves chutney, a delicious and flavorful chutney made from curry leaves and coconut as main ingredients. If you have been following me for a while, you might know how much i like idli and dosa. If I were given a choice to choose only one food to eat my entire life, I would have chosen dosa anytime. 

I love to eat dosa any time, even for lunch, without any complaints. Do you know about the ekadasi vratham( it was last monday this year) in margazhi(tamil) month?? Back in our home town(Tirunelveli), throughout that day, we eat only idli or dosa, strictly no rice on that day. 

Next day morning(thuvadesi), the whole banana leaf meal is prepared to finish off the vratham. To be honest, I like ekadasi vratham especially for that idli & dosa diet on the whole day. When I was a school goer, I preferred to have dosa for three meals, and didn't even consider the idli on those days :-)  

Is this post about chutney, right? Yes, I can hear your mind's voice. As much as I like idli and dosa, the same side dish in a row would be really boring. So I always tried to make different varieties of chutney. 

More than sambar, I prefer chutney varieties for idli or dosa and this curry leaves chutney is my recent favorite. Back in the US, I never found curry leaves in any store other than Indian store. In one of my previous posts, I had mentioned how cautiously I would use the small pack of curry leaves for 2 weeks. 

Related : How to make Curry leaves kulambu

But here in Canada, even Walmart carries curry leaves and it's usually come in larger quantities , so I have been making curry leaves chutney and podi a lot nowadays. 

Curry leaves are packed with a lot of micro nutrients and it's believed to improve your hair growth tremendously and helps to avoid the grey hair in early age, so apart from using it in tempering, including them in chutneys or podi will give more benefits to your health. 

Now let's checkout how I have prepared this healthy & tasty curry leaves chutney.

Related : How to make Curry leaves Podi 

Curry leaves Chutney | Karuvepillai Chutney

Preparation Time : 5 mins | Cooking Time : 5 mins | Serves : 2 
Recipe Category: Chutney | Recipe Cuisine: Indian
curry leaves, karuvepillai, chutney Curry leaves chutney, a delicious and flavorful chutney made from curry leaves and coconut as main ingredients.

Sandhiya https://www.facebook.com/SandhiyasCookbook https://www.instagram.com/sandhiyascookbook/

Ingredients
To grind
Coconut - 1/2 cup
Curry leaves - 1/2 cup(tightly packed)
Green chili - 2 
Tamarind - a small piece
Garlic - 1 pod
Roasted gram dal - 2 tbsp
Salt - to water
Water - as required
To Temper
Sesame oil - 1 tsp
Mustard & urad dal - 1/2 tsp
Curry leaves - few

Procedure

Get all the ingredients be ready, put all the ingredients under "To grind" except "roasted gram dal" into mixie jar and grind into coarse mixture.

Next add the curry leaves, roasted gram dal, salt & water and grind into smooth chutney.

Temper the ingredients listed under "To Temper" &  add the chutney and the required water, mix it well. Switch off the flame.

Tasty & healthy Curry leaves chutney is ready. Serve it with Idli or Dosa. 

Related : More Chutney recipes for idli and dosa

Related : How to make Tomato Chutney

Notes:

• Adjust green chili as per your taste.
• If you're in cold place, then the fat from the coconut easily separated when you grind, to avoid that, add luke warm water to grind. That's the one trick always helps me to get smooth chutney.
• Sesame oil gives great flavor to the chutney.
• Don't let the chutney boil, it will be thicken since it has roasted gram dal.
  

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Curry leaves Powder | Karuveppilai Podi | Home made Spices

Karuveppilai podi, a delicious and aromatic spice powder made from curry leaves and dal. Curry leaves are good for our health and hair, having them regularly adds more benefit to our body and hair. Though i'm using curry leaves for all tempering in our cooking daily, out of habit from childhood, i do always pick those leaves and leave it aside while eating, many times just before putting the plates into the sink i had the realization that i haven't eaten a single curry leaves, every single one on the edge of the plate. It happens most of the time, seriously it's difficult to change the childhood habit, right?
This karuveppilai podi is one of my attempts to eat these leaves, usually we add a handful of curry leaves in the ellu podi/idli podi, here in this podi, instead of sesame seed, i have used lot & lots of curry leaves, the aroma from the curry leaves is so good and  make it even more delicious. Just like paruppu podi, you can have it with rice too. But I prefer to have it with idli and dosa, the combination is simply amazing.Now, let's go and check out the recipe.

Curry leaves Powder

Preparation Time : 10 mins | Cooking Time : 10 mins | Makes : 1/2 cup 
Recipe Category: Spice Powder | Recipe Cuisine: Indian
Curry leaves Podi, Idli Podi, Karuveppilai Podi,Side dish for idli, Idli Podi, Dosa Podi Karuveppilai podi, a delicious and aromatic spice powder made from curry leaves and dal.

Sandhiya https://www.facebook.com/SandhiyasCookbook https://www.instagram.com/sandhiyascookbook/

Ingredients
Curry leaves - 1 cup(tightly packed)
Urad dal - 1/4 cup
Toor dal - 2 tbsp
Red chili - 3 to 4
Asafoetida powder - 1/4 tsp
Salt - to taste

Procedure

Heat the pan and add the curry leaves first, roast them till they are crispy . Once it became crispy, you can hear the sound while roasting. Remove from the flame and let it cool a bit.Next, in the same pan add the urad dal, toor dal and red chili and roast them till it became golden brown and aromatic. Remove from the flame and let it cool.First add the curry leaves in the mixie jar and pulse it couple of time, then add the dal mixture.Then add the asafoetida powder and salt and grind them into powder.Tada, Healthy Curry leaves podi is ready. You can serve this as side for idli or dosa. For more idli and dosa side dish, check out here . 

Notes:

• Be careful while roasting curry leaves, it easily get burned at the bottom.
• If you take curry leaves in your hands and crushed it, it should turned into bits,that how well it should be roasted and in the same time not burned.
• Curry leaves can be sun dried also for couple of days.
• Adjust the chili according to your taste. The given quantity have mild heat.
• I personally like the podi as bit coarse (not too fine) powder, but you can grind them into as fine as you like. 
  

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