SOUTH INDIAN - Summer 2024 (Jul-Sept) Cuisine of the Quarter

GOAN STYLE TONAK ALSANYACHE (BLACK EYED PEAS IN TONAK MASALA)

Not the most photogenic bean stew, but definitely tasty! This stew has a masala of cinnamon, coriander seed, cumin seeds, dried red chiles, green cardamom black peppercorns, and cloves. It is incorporated into a base of green chiles, onion, garlic, and coconut. This is all cooked and then ground together. The linked recipe is for a pressure cooker, but I cooked my peas for a couple hours first, then made the base, and added the peas, turmeric, and potato to cook further in the oven for another hour at 275F (and an extra 1/4 cup of brown lentils to help tighten everything up). I stirred in about 2 tablespoons of tamarind paste in at the end and some cilantro. I will be having this over brown rice for my lunches this week. It tastes great now, but I’m sure it will only get better as the flavors meld overnight!

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Saw this post today! I stay away from main discussions now, but I occasionally check out the notifications :slight_smile:

Let me be brutally honest. The pol sambol in that recipe is a disaster although the recipe says it’s the best. You never use desiccated coconut for that, never unless you cannot find fresh coconut at all. You must use fresh coconut only. And you should never add coconut water in a proper coconut sambol. And you never add curry leaves in a traditional coconut sambol. And definitely nobody squeezes water out of a coconut sambol.

Here’s a rough recipe for a traditional pol sambol. I cannot say for sure exact amounts as I never measure them. But if you need, I’ll measure the next time and mention it here.

Main ingredients:

Finely shredded fresh coconut.

Dried red chillies.

Shallots.

Salt and lime to taste.

Ingredients to enhance the taste:

Maldive fish thinly peeled with a sharp knife (not broken using a blender)

Some people like it with a hint of garlic, freshly crushed.

Some add naga chillies or ghost pepper but that’s for the “advanced users” lol.

For a proper traditional coconut sambol you will need a grinding stone. But without that you can use a mortar and a pestle to crush the red chillies into a paste. It becomes a paste when you crush the red chillies and shallots together.

Then add the thinly/finely peeled maldive fish and salt, and crush them into the paste. But don’t crush maldive fish into a fine paste, visible small pieces are the best. Then add some more shallots and coconut, and crush them again. Then add the lime juice to taste, and crush a little bit more. Taste, balance, and serve.

Made properly, the sambol will have a orange/red colour, and tiny pieces of maldive fish and shallot visible. Some people also burn one red chillie, crush it, and add it but that’s mostly in the North as I’ve seen.

Curry leaves cannot be preserved in its green fresh colour for more than a few days. We don’t use dried curry leaves. However you can grind them into a paste and keep it in the refrigerator for a longer time than you would the fresh leaves. :slight_smile: You can easily grow a curry leaf plant in the garden, or a pot. I’ll send you some seeds if you need :slight_smile:

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Thank you! I think I will be sticking with the tomato sambal for now!

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