Thakaali kuruma - Nostalgia Personified

Creating the Tamilcuisine index is one refreshing experience. Not only did I rediscover the variety in tamil cuisine but also been able to appreciate the varied cultures and the different ways of whipping up the same dish. Not to mention I discovered so many blogs that I did not know about.

Though I had visited Kay's blog earlier ( When she announced her pregnancy ) I somehow missed the wonderful recipes she had in store until I was searching her blog for some authentic recipes.

Kay is from Kongunaadu that is the downsouth around Raasipuram, Salem etc. More here from Wiki...

She had posted a thakaali kuruma recipe that I would have sworn was my mom's original recipe - till I read her blog. I have never seen that recipe in any restaurant neither in any cuisine I knew. I love love thakaali kuruma so much for a hearty breakfast with idli or dosai.

What amazes me is my amma has not stepped anywhere near kongunaadu, nor has any friends there, yet this kuruma is the exactly the same as Kay has blogged.

To recreate the recipe I bought small variety vine-ripe tomatoes for the farmers market. Rest was from her recipe word to word. I even managed to get a few saunf seeds on the keyboard of my laptop ( errr... I kept the laptop on my kitchen counter !!! )

The secret of this recipe is to downplay the quantities of the masaala. Just one clove, 2 green chillies, one tablespoon each of saunf, poppy seeds, roasted channadal and coconut. Everything in lesser quantities except the tomatoes ofcourse 4 indian-medium-sized vine ripe tomatoes.

I made a urgent call today morning to amma to let her know I recreated her magic.. Thanks to Kay !!

The Recipe from her site :
Ripe tomatoes - 4-5, finely chopped
Onion - 1, finely chopped
Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp
Salt to taste
Olive oil - 1 tbsp
Curry leaves - 1 sprig, chopped
Wet Masala:
Garlic - 3 cloves
Ginger - 1 inch
Roasted channa dal/Pottu kadalai - 1 tbsp
Poppy seeds / khuskhus - 1 tsp
Coconut - 1 tbsp (dry/frozen is fine)
Cinnamon - 1 small piece
Clove - 1
Fennel seeds - 1/2 tsp
Green chillies - 2 (you can add more to make it more hot)

Make a fine paste of the wet masala ingedients using some water and a pinch of salt. Green chillies when ground to a paste sometimes, turn slightly bitter. The pinch of salt is added to the wet masala while grinding to prevent this.

Heat oil in a sauce pan and add the onions and curry leaves. Saute till the onions turn translucent. Add the tomatoes and sprinkle some salt to help the tomatoes cook faster. When the tomatoes are done, add the turmeric powder, ground masala and some more salt. Add about 2 cups of water and cover the sauce pan. simmer for about 15-20 mins. Garnish with some coriander leaves and serve hot with hot dosas or idlis.


For dinner, I had muttai dosa with the same kuruma. Awesome Awesome is all I can say !!



I want to contribute this idli - muttaidosai - kuruma combo to RCI-Tamil Cusines' event hosted by LakshmiK