Paruppusli
Hola! This is one recipe that I learnt from my mil 10 years ago and have never forgotten nor ever needed to refer back to a recipe book or to her. Probably why, it’s taken me ages to get this blogged :). It’s a simple, sure shot and 100% impossible to fail recipe. If you are a tam brahm or have a tam brahm friend, you have surely heard of paruppusli. Paruppusli is the dish where dal (paruppu) is soaked, steamed and then made it into a powder (usli) form. This spice powder mixture is used to enhance stir fries (and ofcourse increase the protein quotient of the dish).
I decided to blog the basic paruppusli dish. This paruppusli can be used in almost any veggie to convert it to that veggie paruppusli and trust me, it tastes soooooo good. The traditional combo is to have this paruppusli dish along with vathakozhambu (logical sine vathakozhambu doesn’t have dal in it unlike sambhar) or more kozhambu (though more/ buttermilk has it’s quota of protein.. since it’s buttermilk the protein quotient in it will be fairly less).
Anywho, go ahead and try this! I am sure you will love it.
- 1/4 cup toor dal
- 1/4 cup channa dal
- 3 nos long dried red chillies
- 1/8 tsp asafoetida
- 1/2 tsp rock salt
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Place 1/4c toor dal, 1/4c channa dal in a bowl and wash/ rinse 3 times.
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Then fill the bowl with atleast 1.5c water and let it soak for 3 hours.
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After 3 hours, drain all the water and place the soaked dal in a mixer jar.
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Top it off with 3 dried red chillies, 1/8t asafoetida, 1/2t rock salt.
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Pulse till you have a coarse mixture (you don't want a smooth paste).
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Place the pulsed mixture/ flat bottom bowl onto a plate and spread it.
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Place this in a pressure cooker and pressure cook for 5-6 whistles.
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Let the pressure release normally, remove the plate out, use a knife to make random slits and let it cool down.
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Once cool, remove the steamed dal chunks, place it in a dry mixer jar and pulse so the chunks become a powdery.
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Your paruppusli is ready and you can use this in any stir fries.
- We use this paruppusli happily in beans, cabbage, carrot, murungakeerai, manathakkali keerai, capsicum, banana stem. We also use this in ammini kozhakattai. All you need to do is steam the veggie and then add this paruppusli once the veggie is steamed.
- The paruppusli can be made ahead and store in a fridge for upto a week. This also freezes very well and can be kept for at least 3 months.
- You can make this paruppusli more or less spicy as you prefer.
- You can also steam the paruppusli in an idli steamer.
