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I came across the name of this recipe first time when a fan of subbuskitchen requested the recipe of this. I have never tasted this before. Then I found out this is a famous dish in Andhra Cuisine and approached my friend who is from Hyderabad and she checked with her MIL and shared this recipe with me. Like Idly Podi, this Nalla Kara Podi can be served with hot steaming rice or we can serve with idlis and dosas. Generously sprinkle Nalla Kara Podi over idli and add a table spoon of gingilly oil and enjoy the idli.

Our Tamilnadu Style Idli Podi is mainly having dal and red chilies. We add a lot of urad dal along with Bengal gram and toor dal. But in Nalla Kara Podi, the main ingredients are Curry Leaves and Coriander seeds. Our conventional Tamilnadu style idli podi don't have curry leaves or coriander seeds. We prepare Curry Leaves Powder (Karivepillai Podi), but for that also we don't add coriander seeds. This is a uniqueness Nalla Karam Podi. The garlic, coriander seeds along with curry leaves makes this much more yummier and a perfect accompaniment for Idli. Another good thing about Nalla Kara Podi is that we can serve with hot steaming rice with a teaspoon of ghee. Its a perfect mix for rice too!

Nalla Kara Podi

Table of Contents

Recipe Card:

Method with step by step pictures:

Take all required ingredients and keep it ready for frying. Curry leaves, I have dried in the sun and have it ready. If you are in abroad, then you can dry fry the curry leaves in a pan or microwave plate for a minute so that the fresh leaves loses its moisture

Now we are going to fry each ingredients separately one after the other. First, I have added ¼ teaspoon of oil and roast the cumin seeds and take this to the mixer. Next, add ¼ teaspoon of oil and the red chillies and fry for a minute in low flame and add that to the plate for cooling

This is followed by black urid dal along with ¼ teaspoon of oil. I have used black urid dal as this is traditionally used, but you can also use normal white urid dal also. Roast the urid dal till it turns slightly brown color. Take the roasted urid dal to the plate for cooling. Then add ¼ teaspoon of oil and add channa dal and fry till the dal turns golden color.

Then fry the coriander seeds in the oil for couple of minutes and cool it. Next fry the tamarind in oil for a minute and add it to the plate for cooling.

Finally add ¼ teaspoon of oil again and add curry leaves and fry them for a minute and take it in a separate plate. Add the dals, coriander seeds, red chillies, cumin seeds and tamarind to the mixer.

Grind the added ingredients in the mixer to a coarse powder. To that, add fried curry leaves and give a pulse

Finally add salt, raw garlic pod and give couple of pulse and remove the nalla kara podi from the mixer. Heat a pan with ghee and add the nalla kara podi and roast it in ghee for 2 minutes.