Pulihora /Tamarind Rice (Temple Style)

Pulihora/Puliogare is a traditional south indian dish which is treated as  mandatory every festival and anything auspicious. Not sure where and how it started but this dish is treated with utmost respect.

Any temple we go if there is prasadam then it would 90% be pulihora. Every festival we have this dish at home and we never get bored of it. Its tangy taste makes it even more drool worthy.

Its quite easy to prepare but taste differs a lot based on how much tamarind is added. At home though we prepare the tamarind rice but it never gets the taste of temple prasadam. My mom prepares this very good and its comes quite close to how its prepared in temple.

The basic difference is the tamarind being used. In temple old tamarind is used which is blackish in color . A lot changes on the tamarind used too.

My moms temple pulihora recipe for all the temple prasadam lovers.

Recipe: 

Ingredients:

Tamarind - 1/4 cup

turmeric - 1/2 tspn

Rice - 2 cup

water - 4 cups (for rice)

for seasoning:

oil - 2 tbspn

green chillies - 3

red chillies - 2 (adjust chillies based on spiciness needed)

curry leaves - 10

chana dal - 2 tspn

mustard seeds - 1 tspn

cumin seeds - 1 tspn

split urud dal - 1 tspn

cashews - 3 tbspn

peanuts- 4 tbspn

Pulihora powder :

Sesame seeds - 2 1/2 tspn

coriander seeds - 4 tspn

fenugreek seeds - 2 tspn

peppercons  (black pepper)- 3 tspn

Procedure:

• Wash rice and cook it with twice the water .
• Once the rice is cooked keep the lid open and let it cool down. This will help the rice not be too mushy when mixing.
• paralelly can start preparing the tamarind mixture
• Soak tamarind in water for 5 minutes.
• extract tamarind pulp from tamarind .atleast 3 cups of tamarind pulp.

        pulihora powder.

• Dry roast the ingredients. it should not be completely roasted till the pulses turn almost brownish.
• grind the ingredients to form a smooth powder.

• slit the green chillies long .
• In a wok add oil and once heated add all the seasoning ingredients.
• Once the mustard seeds are spluttered and cashews,peanuts are slightly roasted add the tamarind pulp.
• Add turmeric and salt to the mixture and let it cook for 5 mins.
• Now add the pulihora powder. It would be best to add half of powder and check if its spicy before adding the remaining powder.

     

• Cook till it forms a thick paste or till oil oozes out from the paste.
• Mix the paste properly without mashing the rice.
• Add salt if needed and more powder can be added now as per spiciness.