How y’all doing this weekend?
As the name suggest, this curry powder is an all rounder. well, at least in the southern kitchens of India or utmost among my kith and kins.
Yes, I have gone rogue and didn’t pay much attention to what Yoast has to say today. That’s my SEO plugin, I have #dontcare mood today. Let’s talk something else for a little while then we shall move on to the much hyped curry powder.
Do you remember how that one particular thing that you cannot let go feels?
How you are so afraid that nothing better will ever come and that this is the best as it gets?
Those notions are mostly not true. Sometimes you have to let go, believe that something awesome or at least better will come your way and that you just need to give it a chance and take that risk.
You should never settle. The future isn’t absolute, then why be a prisoner of it?
I gave up so many things, threw away so many opportunities and yet still standing. Not strongly and not in my shoes but still I am not regretting the decisions I made(most of the times haha). If I hadn’t so brave(or stupid, whatever is applicable here), I wouldn’t be here.
No matter how many times you tell this to yourself, it never dies down. Your brain doesn’t have a switch. You have to reiterate everything to it every single time. I know it’s hard because I am also going through something like that now. One thing is for sure, you are going to recover from it and be stronger than you have been before. So hold on and let the life take you places you were afraid to explore before.
I am done now. Let’s talk about that Curry Powder!
As far as I can remember, we have been calling this, Chili Powder. Ofcourse, they don’t look like your commercially sold Curry powder per se, that’s because they aren’t.
Something I noticed is that we don’t really have any special names for the things we use in our day to day cooking. Even the ginger-garlic paste wasn’t specifically called as “ginger-garlic paste.” We’d simply ask the person that is helping us to grind these two and that’s all.
This reminds me of the discussion I had many years ago with a good friend about mental illness. It was a tough time for them. They mentioned some medical term and called it as their condition. In response to that I said, “Foreigners have names for every minute things. Don’t bother with it. You are fine, don’t rack your brain trying to decipher what it is that you are feeling.”
Of course I ended up having a ‘depression’ few years later. Actually, no, I was already suffering from it and since I didn’t think it had a name I didn’t know I even had it.
What I am trying to say is that it’s not necessarily bad that we label every thing but let’s not obsess over it.
How did I conclude that the supposedly Chili Powder is actually a curry powder?
From vintage cookbooks.
This curry powder has multipurpose. They can be used in Indian recipes like,
- Sambar* (disguised as Sambar Powder for so many years!)
- Karakuzhambu*
- Poriyals*
- Traditional snacks
- Marinade for fishes
- Soups
- Curries
*refer Glossary
Cool thing about living in a small town of India?
We have those fine powder grinding machine that is very much useful to make powders of big batches. We have shops for it.
This recipe is a big batch and can be used for more than two months if your regular cooking is Tamil Cuisine.
All-in-one Everyday Madras Curry Powder
INGREDIENTS
1/2 kg Dry red chili either round or long variety
1/2 kg Coriander seeds
50 g Black peppercorns
50 g Cumin seeds
50 g Dry Turmeric long variety
50 g Chana dal
50 g Toor dal
All-in-one everyday madras curry powder at brainsandbeans dot com
INSTRUCTIONS
-
- Let the chili sun dry for an hour. Pick and discard any impurities from dal and set aside.
- Heat a small pan over medium flame.
- Dry roast black peppercorns, cumin seeds, chana dal and toor dal until aromatic and the dals change slightly brown in colour.
- Take it off the heat and let the mixture cool.
RECIPE NOTES
- Dry turmeric is hard on the regular mixer-grinder that we use at home. Since we usually make big batches of this everyday curry powder, we have shops that uses ‘fine powder grinding machine’, that makes the tasks easy.
- I guess high powdered blender or food processor can do the job. It is still risky and I wouldn’t recommend it personally.
- Fenugreek, black mustard seeds and dry ginger is also added in some households.
- Curry powder lasts well over 2 months if you follow South Indian cooking everyday
Can you believe I have only one recipe where you can make use of this versatile Curry powder. Be sure to check it out! “Spicy Masala Oats”
I should cook more spicy foods. Get notified on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest for instant updates if I did!
Be well, be happy!
