#1000Kitchens Recipe Drop: Puli Rasam, and Thuvaiyal

When Kartik and his partner, Sasha moved to Goa in 2019, they would search for good south Indian food, but there were hardly any options. The founder of Goa’s Tamil Table, Kartik began reconstructing everything he had tasted as a child. Documentation started with his mental notes. “And over phone calls with mum.” As he cooked, people dropped in to eat. The flavours were clean, unexpected. “Friends would ask us to cater small events,” recalls Sasha. “We were just cooking for people we loved. There was no hurry to start a restaurant, no business plan. It just started from the need to cook.”

But the more people he fed, the more Kartik felt like cooking. A ripple effect, you could say. “It had a real romance to it,” he reflects. As if the joy somehow multiplied itself with each meal.

Today, in the restaurant kitchen, he is cooking a puli rasam and thuvaiyal, two of the simplest dishes, it could be argued, in his repertoire. They come to him from his great-grandmother, and represent a quiet sort of homecoming. “When I’d return home after travelling, mum would ask me, ‘What do you want to eat?’ I’d always say, ‘Make me puli rasam and karavadu.’”

Rice kept overnight with water, and thuvaiyal. “I’m coming home to eat rasam rice and karavadu. That means I’m home, and I’m safe.”

This is a #1000Kitchens feature. More, here.

RECIPE FOR PULI RASAM

Ingredients

Sesame oil
1 tsp mustard seeds
1 tsp broken urad dal
2 tsp toor dal
1 lemon sized ball of soaked in 3 cups of water for few hours. Strain and set aside the water
2 green chillies, split
1 tsp fenugreek seeds
1 sprig curry leaves
1-12 whole shallots, peeled
1 generous pinch, asafoetida
Rock salt, to taste
1 tsp turmeric powder
Coriander, for garnish

Method
Heat the oil in the wok, add in mustard seeds, urad and toor dals and fenugreek.
When it crackles, add in the chilli, curry leaves, and shallots.
Roast the ingredients on a high flame.
Salt generously.
Add turmeric powder, and then the tamarind water.
Add in the asafoetida and allow to simmer for 20 minutes.
Finish with fresh coriander leaves.

RECIPE FOR RIDGE GOURD THUVAIYAL

Ingredients

2 tbsp sesame oil
3 pcs whole asafoetida
10 cloves garlic
12 slices of ginger
2 dry red chilli, halved
Peels of 1 ridge gourd
Rock salt, to taste
1 handful peanuts
1 sprig curry leaves
2 red chillies
1 tsp toor dal and urad dal
1 pinch asafoetida powder

Method

Heat the sesame oil in a hot wok. Add in the asafoetida.
When it puffs up, add in the garlic cloves, ginger rounds, and broken red chilli.
Now add the ridge gourd peels.
Allow to cook and move into a blender. Be careful not to over-roast, as we want to preserve the vibrant green colour of the peels.
Add a fistful of peanuts.
Season with rock salt.
Blitz till it forms a paste.
Separately, prepare a tempering of curry leaves, red chilli, toor dal, chana dal and asafoetida.
Add the blitzed thuvaiyal in, and stir-fry for a minute.

Words any Anisha Oommen. Photographs by Nachiket Pimprikar. Art by Aparna Patidar.
Special thanks to your partners.