More Kozhambu

I was appraising a batch of brinjals in the super market, when my room-mate Sindhura beckoned to me. She pointed to the pack of frozen coconut with glee. Now, to give some background, I have been incapacitated from cooking a lot of south Indian delicacies because working on a coconut simply stymies me. It has to be broken in one clean go. Digging into an already opened coconut with a fork does not work. Last time I tried it, the fork's broken head got stuck to the coconut. One has to make sharp and deep incisions and slowly coax out the white chunks. Then this has to be put inside the mixie to actually grate it. None of the coconut graters they sell at the markets work (or it might because I don't really know to handle them). Because of the operational difficulties involved in breaking the coconut, I defer from making the fluffy white aloo podimas, or the mint coconut chutney, or the carrot poriyal with tiny cubes unless my roommates' mothers visit. They deal with coconuts like they deal with petulant children and store a good chunk in the fridge. Like chipmunks, we treasure these chunks for weeks and use it precariously on all dishes.

I immediately brought the pack home and set out on making More Kozhambu. It is perhaps the easiest to make in the world.

Things needed [Each ingredient is absolutely needed as each contributes to the otherwise bland kozhambu]

Curd - Please keep this out at night so that it is nice and sour the next day.

Jeera

Green Chillies

Grated Coconut- One Dallop

Haldi

Oil

Urad dal

Mustard seeds (Kadugu)

Take coconut, chillies, jeera and make a nice coarse paste. Add salt.

Dilute the curd until it becomes buttermilk. You might have to put the curd in a vessel and pur water and beat it with a ladle. That way it becomes smooth without too many big undissolved chunks of curd.

Put the buttermilk on a vessel and put the coconut jeera paste in this. Add a pinch of turmeric. Turmeric is a dangerous ingredient. A tad too much can completely change the taste.

Boil for three minutes until it froths!

Take one tsp.oil in a separate vessel . Fry the mustard seeds and urad dal and season the kozhambu. You are done!

You can also add semi boiled ladies finger, or brinjal to the kozhambu while it is boiling.

It goes very well with raw banana fry and brinjal fry. But since my battery is dying out, (thanks to the Telengana Bundh powercuts) that shall have to be on a separate post