PULIHORA

PULIHORA is a South Indian cuisine. It is usually cooked on special occasions and festival days. It is offered as prasadam at South Indian temples as well as homes. ‘puli’ means sour/tangy in South Indian language. This rice is prepared with tamrind mixed with rice along with spices. There are many variations in South to prepare this dish, here is one recipe from Andhra region.

INGREDIENTS:

Rice- 500gm

Tamarind- 100 gm

Red chillies-5 to 6

Green chillies-5 to 6

Mustard seeds- 1 tsp

Urad dal- 2 tsp

Bengal gram- 4 tbsp

Ginger- 1 cm

Turmeric- 1 tsp

Ground nuts- 3 tbsp

Salt as taste

Jaggery- 1 tsp

Oil- 1/2 cup

Asafoetida- a pinch

Curry leaves- handful.

TIPS:

1. Add one tsp oil while cooking rice to avoid sticking of grains.

2. Add tamrind pulp as per your taste. Taste salt and sourness while mixing rice and tamarind paste. So that you can adjust as per your liking.

3. Pulihora always tastes well 3 to 4 hours after the preparation.

4. Do not use basmati rice for this recipe.

Preparation time: 20 minutes

Cooking time: 30 minutes

Total time: 50 minutes

PROCEDURE:

Entire procedure is mentioned in 4 steps

✓ 1. cooking tamarind paste with spices.

✓ 2. Cooking rice.

✓ 3. Seasoning spices.

4. Mixing rice, tamarind paste & seasoning.

Additional tip: add sesame seed powder to enhance the taste of this recipe.

How to make sesame seed powder:

Dry fry red chilies, cumin seeds, sesame one by one and grind to a coarse powder. add this to the cooked rice along with seasoning. The addition of this powder to the recipe will take it to the next level.

Detailed instructions step by step:

1. Cooking rice: cook rice in a cooker along with 1 tbsp Bengal gram Dal/chana Dal and 1 tsp oil.

2. Soak tamarind in warm water for one hour.

3. Cooking tamarind paste: mash tamrind well and stain it . Discard pulp. Take pulp and add Turmeric, salt, green chillies and curry leaves. Cook till it thickens. Off the flame and keep aside. Add small jaggery piece to it.

4. When rice is done spread in a plate to cool. add Turmeric and one tsp oil to it. keep aside.

5. For seasoning:

Heat 2 tbspn oil in a kadai add ground nuts, chanadal, urad Dal, mustard seeds, red chillies, curry leaves, last but not least a pinch of asafoetida. Add one by one all the ingredients in the mentioned order.