Tomato buttermilk curry

This picture shows some accompaniments to a traditional Tamilian meal: fried applams, fried tahir molaggai (dried red chillies stuffed with curd and salt) and a bowl of fresh sour curd.

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I've been away from this blog for so long...but not away from the kitchen! Here is a delicious, very light and refreshing buttermilk curry recipe. This is a traditional Tamilian dish, and once again it's a recipe I learnt from my mother-in-law.

Curry leaves are an essential ingredient in the Tamil kitchen. A defining smell in my mother-in-law's kitchen in her Hyderabad apartment is the fragrant aroma of just fried 'tarka' -- crackling mustard seeds, crisply fried curry leaves and toasted brown fenugreek seeds in a teaspoon of oil -- the prepared tarka or fried seasoning is poured over freshly made dhals, curries or vegetables.

This buttermilk curry is finished with a similar tarka. Prepare the buttermilk fresh from sour yogurt (sour curd) to make this curry really delicious. In Tamil kitchens, buttermilk is prepared by briskly churning a bowlful of sour curds mixed with about a glassful of room temperature drinking water. Traditionally this buttermilk curry is made without the tomatoes, and the usual vegetable added is a few cubes of aubergines. I prefer using tomato as it gives the buttermilk a richer more defined flavor and goes well with the coconut paste.


The Recipe:


1 quantity buttermilk
1/2 a fresh coconut grated and ground into a smooth paste with 2 teaspoons toasted cumin seeds and 3 dried red chillies
handful of curry leaves
half a tomato diced
pinch of tumeric
salt
1/2 teaspoon fenugreek seeds
1 teaspoon black mustard seeds
little vegetable oil


Put about 1 cup of water in a pan and bring to the boil, lower heat and add tomatoes, a few of the curry leaves and tumeric and boil for about 5-6 minutes till tomatoes are soft and pulpy. Add the buttermilk and coconut mixture and stir well. Bring to the boil again, then reduce to a low flame and simmer at least 10 minutes till the mixture is well blended and the coconut mixture has lost its raw taste. Add salt to taste.





Seasoning:
Heat 1 teaspoon of vegetable oil, add a few curry leaves and the fenugreek seeds; stir quickly till seeds turn golden brown, add the black mustard seeds and remove from heat as soon as they start sputtering (be careful as this happens quickly especially if the oil is very hot). Pour this mixture into the buttermilk curry and serve hot with steamed white rice and a bit of lime or mango pickle and fried aaplams (poppadums).