Those were the days when moms didn’t worry too much about two servings of vegetables, one serving of carbs, three servings of proteins for their families. Sometimes, there were meals that had no veggies at all. Yet, somehow, they were special. Mom just cooked rice and served it with ghee and a spoonful of karuvepillaipodi (curry leaf powder) on top. We mixed it all up, with much merriment, as the pepper in the powder made us sneeze, and bolted it down!
Midnight hunger pangs, rainy days, cold and feverish days, no-vegetable days, it was karuvepillaipodi to the rescue. It has been a long time since I had this treat, and when a dear friend sent me armloads of home-grown, fresh green, amazingly fragrant curry leaves, I just knew what I had to do: make podi . So, I asked my mom, Googled, WhatsApped and mixed, matched and modified the ingredients, and I must confess, was very pleased with the outcome.
For that extra kick, I used all organic ingredients. But there was no such thing as organic ingredients when I was growing up, and things tasted just fine. So, go right ahead and make it with whatever you have. Not just karuvepillaipodi . There is paruppu podi , coconut podi , garlic podi , ellu (sesame seed) podi … My extended family of cousins and aunts and uncles have written verses about these podis and shared them in family gatherings. And one cousin has actually called his blog ‘Paruppu Podi’ or something like that. When another relative went on a weight-loss diet, he refused to give up podi sadham . The only concession he made was to use olive oil instead of ghee.
I have decided to make at least two podis every month and bottle them up. The karuvepillai podi is especially perfect for that rainy day, when there is a nip in the air. It might just keep that cough and cold at bay. My mom believes that. I have the recipe for a mean karuvepillai chutney too. But that’s for another day.
RecipeI used a combination of dals: 1/4 cup each of toor dal, chana dal and urad dal. I dry roasted them with four red chillies and a tablespoon each of jeera and black pepper. Once the dals turned a golden-brown and smelt like heaven, I kept them aside to cool.
In the meanwhile, I had already taken the curry leaves off their stalks, washed and dried them (about a cup and a half of tightly packed leaves). It is best to sun-dry the curry leaves, but as there is not much sun these days, I dry-roasted them till no moisture remained.
I first ground the dry mixture with required salt and hing and a marble-sized portion of tamarind. Then, I added the dry curry leaves to it, before giving the grinder another turn. You can keep it as coarse or smooth as you want it to be. That is all.
Curry leaf powder: it’s something tasty, convenient to have around, and with all the goodness of dals and the green leaves. On a day that you don’t feel like cooking, all you need to do is cook rice. If you want, substitute the rice with millets and replace the ghee with sesame oil, making it equally yummy and healthy to boot. Other things you can do with the podi: drizzle it over grilled cheese on bread or make lemon rice, add the powder to it and temper with cashew nuts.
I have put the green podi in a glass bottle and it looks so pretty. I uncork it and take a sniff every time I pass by it.
