Pulihora

Pulihora is a very common South India dish made of rice. I call this a festival dish as there is never a festival in Andhra with out pulihora. Usually I make this dish the way my mom does. Couple of days back one of my friends (P) thought me another version of this dish. Both these variations are equally tasty.

Today being Diwali, I made pulihora inspired from both these variations. It came out pretty good and thought of sharing it in this space! 

Preparation Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

• Rice - 2 cups
• Tamarind - lemon size ball 
• Salt to taste

 Saute:

• Oil - 3 Tablespoons
• Mustard Seeds - 1/2 Tablespoon
• Chana Daal - 2 Tablespoons
• Urad Daal - 1 Teaspoon
• Peanuts - 3 Tablespoons
• Green Chillies - 3
• Red Chillies - 3
• Turmeric powder - 1/2 Teaspoon
• Asafetida - 1/2 Teaspoon
• Curry leaves - 15 to 20

Pulihora Powder:

• Coriander Seeds - 1 Tablespoon
• Toor Daal - 1 Tablespoon
• Black pepper - 1 Teaspoon
• Sesame seeds - 1 tablespoon

Prep:

1. Soak tamarind in warm water for about 20 minutes.Extract the juice free of seeds and pulp.
2. Dry roast coriander seeds, toor daal, black pepper and sesame seeds. Let cool for 5 minutes and make fine powder.
3. Pressure cook rice in 4 cups of water with a pinch of turmeric and 1 tablespoon of oil. Once cooked, gently mix rice with a spoon or fork to separate grains of rice. Oil helps prevent grains from sticking together.

Procedure:

1. Heat 3 tablespoons of oil in a pan on medium high flame. Add mustard seeds, groundnuts, chana dal, urad dal and green chillies in this order and fry for about a minute or two.
2. Add curry leaves, red chillies, turmeric and Asafetida. 
3. Add tamarind and boil the mixture for 5 to 10 minutes until oil starts oozing out. Boiling groundnuts, chillies and chana dal with tamarind gives a good flavor. 
4. Add the salt and pulihora powder to this mixture. Let cook for another 2 minutes.
5. Add this mixture to the pressure cooked rice and give a gentle mix so the rice grains do not break and rice grains are evenly coated with the  tamarind paste. 
6. Serve with papad, chips or vadiyalu/varugulu.