Skip to main content

What's in a Podi



I have a notebook full of recipes. It's tattered, falling out at the edges which tells me I started hoarding recipes early, pretty much before high school. There are recipes from magazines, from cookbooks I borrowed from library. I've even pasted recipes that come at the back of certain packages. Then there's a second notebook. This has to be somewhere from the end of my college years. I can't fathom how I got to be so organized, but I went back and added page numbers to both the notebooks and created an index, neatly split into recipe types and cuisines.

This second notebook has more "exotic" stuff from the first Jamie Oliver my library bought intertwined with Sanjeev Kapoor recipes. Then, because this notebook went travelling with me when I moved away from home, it has my first recipes copied from roommates and new friends.

One such recipe is podi, known affectionately as gunpowder. I am pretty sure podi means a generic chutney and comes in several forms, but my friend introduced it to me as this spicy version you mix with oil and eat with your idlis. Since then, no matter how many other recipes I've seen, this is the podi I make every single time I am in the risk of running out of my stock.

You heat a fry pan and roast a cup of chana dal in 1/2 tsp oil. Turn it out of the pan, then heat another 1/2 tsp oil and roast 3/4 cup split (white) urad dal. Mix a marble sized ball of tamarind (with no seeds or fibers), a tsp of hing, 4 tsp of chilli powder and salt to taste. Roast for a minute in just a hint of oil. You now have three plates of roasted stuff cooling away. Grind all three coarsely but separately, then mix to form your gunpowder.

Next time you make idlis, heap a tbsp of podi on your plate. Make a well in the center and add a couple of tsp of sesame oil. Mix to form a paste. Dip your idlis for the ultimate taste experience. But go easy on how much you eat in a go. After all, this isn't called gunpowder for no reason.
Labels:

Comments

notyet100 said…
its my sisters fav,..thnks for the recipe
October 22, 2010 at 11:37 AM
Anonymous said…
Try it with Toor dal.. it tastes even closer to the authentic chutney :)
October 22, 2010 at 2:03 PM
Unknown said…
Ooh I love this. Eaten it many times at a restaurant when I was younger, can't rememeber it's name though. It was delicious :D
October 22, 2010 at 3:03 PM
Srivalli said…
There is nothing to replace this gunpowder..:)..yeah I add toor dal too..but then there are million variations!..great to know about your notebooks simmy..how nice..
October 22, 2010 at 5:25 PM
Unknown said…
Ya I remember eating it too
October 22, 2010 at 8:08 PM
Shanky said…
"podi" merely means powder, much like pesto merely means paste...
November 5, 2010 at 3:22 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I've found my perfect cookie

It's a bite sized cookie, with flavors of a pie, shape of a croissant and a pretty, pretty name. It's Rugelach. I first heard of this cookie when it became the baking pick for Tuesdays with Dorrie a couple of months back. The looks, the concept - everything was fascinating. And I've dreamed of making this cookie ever since. I ditched hundreds of recipes floating around and went straight to the master. It's Dorie Greenspan's recipe that I used, and ain't I glad I got it so perfect the very first time. So what's rugelach? It's cream-cheese pastry dough, rolled then cut into wedges, spread with jam and sugar and fillings of choice, rolled into crescents and baked. First the dough. Dorie did it in her processor, but I just went and did it by hand. Put 100 gms cream cheese and 100 gms butter out of the fridge until they were soft but still cold. Added both to a cup of plain flour (I omitted the salt because I use salted butter). Rubbed the flour and but
10 comments
Read more

Mystery Fruit

This only happened a few times every year, just when the rainy season kicked in. A street hawker will come by, straw basket on head. He will yell "kaul chapni" and I will run out to buy a bundle of these. Stuck together like flowers, they looked like a bouquet. Every hole contains a little fruit. You break out the package, peel the tiny fruit that pops out and eat it. Done slowly, it can take you an hour to eat an head. Or did, when I was about 12 years old. That was the last time I saw this fruit. I've never seen it again, didn't even know what it was called or where it came from. Three weeks back, Vikram Doctor wrote about a store in Khar that sells Sindhi foods. He described this fruit and I knew it came from my vivid childhood memories. And finally, I knew we were talking about lotus fruit. Now talk about coincidences. Last weekend, I was passing by a lane in Bandra and for the first time in many, many years I saw the straw basket filled with my mytery fru
14 comments
Read more

Of Brun and Bun Maska

There is more to Bombay's breads than the pao that goes into pao bhaji and vada pao. There's Brun. and there's bun. We will get there. First, you have to get to know the city's Parsis. And Iranis, who are also Zoroastrians, but came to city a little later, in the late 19th or early 20th century. And when they came, they brought with them these little cafes that dot the city. I am no expert on Irani chai cafes. And I can't tell you whether Yazdani Bakery will provide you the best experience or Kyani's. But I can tell you a few things you need to ignore when you get there. Appearances don't matter; so ignore the fact that the marble/glass top tables and the wooden chairs look a bit dilapidated. Also ignore the rundown look the place sports. Instead, get yourself settled. And order a bun muska. This one's familiar to you as a first cousin of the soft hamburger bun. It's similar, but just a tad bit sweeter. Maska, of course, is the generous dollop o
13 comments
Read more