Pepper Kulambu with manathakkali vathal

Pepper is one of the important spices in indian cuisine. With a lot of medicinal values, pepper often comes handy for many home remedies. It can be used to relive common colds, coughs, fever to mention a few.. To know more about pepper, follow this link..

Coming to the recipe, i make this pepper kulambu every now and then. Since i had manathakkali vathal(sorry i don't know the english name) sitting in my pantry, i thought of using it in the pepper kulambu as a nice twist for the regular version. It tastes heavenly with hot rice with a spoon of gingely oil. For me it even tastes better when had along with curd rice. So friends try it, hope you like it..


You will need :
Onion : 1
Tomato : 1
Garlic : 3 pods
Pepper corns : 2 tsp
Sambar powder : 1 tsp
Manathakkali vathal : 2 tsp
Tamarind : lemon size ball
Turmeric powder : a pinch
Salt : as needed

How to cook :
Soak the tamarind in warm water and extract the juice and keep aside. In a pan add a tsp of ghee and fry the peppercorns. Cool and powder it. In the same pan add some more oil and fry the vathal. When its crisp remove it and set aside. In a kadai, heat some oil and do the seasoning. Then add the garlic and onions and fry for some time. Then add the tomatoes and cook till its half done. Now add the tamarind juice, sambar powder, turmeric powder and salt. Let everything boil till the raw smell goes. Finally add the ground pepper and the vathal. Leave it for some more time till the flavors blend well. Serve with rice..

Note: Since the vathal is salted and dried for commercial purposes, add only half the amount of salt to kulambu so that it will not become too salty..

Sending this to CWS -pepper hosted by Padma and stated by Priya..