As I said in earlier post of Tamilnadu style Idli, Kulambu is a very good side dish for idli, if you like sweet and sour kind of taste. We all enjoyed this flavourful curry with idli and I had promised to post this recipe in my earlier post. Basically, it is a simple curry with tamarind base, which has shallots and garlic as the main veggies in it. Once again, all thanks to Senguttuvan Subburathina and his wife, Jayanthi Senguttuvan for this amazing recipe. I have made some changes to suit our requirement.
Ingredient:
Peeled garlic – 20
Shallots /sambar onions – 20
Tamarind – small lemon size.
Salt
Jaggery – as needed.
Red chilli powder – 1 tea spoon
Sambar powder – 1 tea spoon
Hing – pea size
Turmeric – ½ tea spoon
Coconut – ¼ cup
Rice flour – 1 tea spoon
Seasoning: Gingelly oil – 1 tea spoon, refined oil – 1 tea spoon, fenugreek seeds – ½ tea spoon, mustard – 1 tea spoon, curry leaves – 1 spring.
Method:
-Remove outer skin of shallots and garlic. If shallots are big, make couple of pieces.
-Soak tamarind in one cup of water.
-Take a vessel, do seasoning by pouring both the oils, when it is hot, add fenugreek, when it is light brown, add mustard. When it crackles, add curry leaves.
-Add garlic and shallots and fry for a while. Meanwhile add turmeric, hing and toss for a while.
-Add tamarind water, red chilli powder, sambar powder, salt, jaggery and cook onions and garlic.
-Grind coconut and rice flour into smooth paste and add the paste to cooked onion.
-Adjust the consistency by adding some water, check the seasoning like salt, sweet and hot. If needed add and adjust the taste.
– Boil this for 5 minutes, so that rice flour and coconut paste also cooks and becomes little thick.
-When it is ready, enjoy with hot idlies.
Note:
-Original recipe is a little hot, hence I reduced the quantity of chilli and sambar powder.
-Usage of gingelly oil gives the authentic taste. If you are not accustomed to its taste, mix half of any vegetable oil.
-Usage of coconut paste is optional.
-We like little thick texture Kolumbu, so I added rice flour as well. It gives a little creamy texture and is also tasty.