Karivepaku Karam Podi – Spicy Curry Leaves Powder

Karivepaku Karam Podi is one of very famous and much loved spice powder in Andhra. Podi means powder in ‘Telugu’ and is quintessential part of Andhra Cuisine. No meal is complete without relishing few morsels with spicy powder. Typically in any Andhra house you can find 2-3 different varieties of spice powders along with 2-3 different pickles. These spice powders change their ingredients, quantity and ratio from house to house. Like every house has their own rasam recipe, these spice powders do change their variation from house to house.

Today I am going to share with you my very favourite spice powder Karivepaku Karam Podi, which is made with karivepaku/curry leaves. Curry Leaves are very important part of south Indian cuisine. You can rarely find a stir fry or a recipe which doesn’t call for curry leaves in Andhra Cuisine. Do you know curry leaves are also called as ‘sweet neem leaves’…Curry leaves are natural flavouring agents and carry many health benefits.

Today’s Karivepaku karam podi is my version of curry leaves powder, which is generally made in every Andhra households. I wanted to have more flavour of curry leaves so I skipped using chana dal and to give texture to podi, I added more urad dal. This karam podi is diabetic friendly and dialysis friendly. When on dialysis, people are asked to consume less fluids and sometimes 24 hour fluid intake including tea, coffee, rasam, sambar, dal, juice, etc…should not go beyond 750-1000 ml. At those times, these podi’s come handy.

You can relish this podi with hot rice with a dollop of ghee or you can serve this karivepaku karam podi with hot idli, dosa, vada, paniyaram,etc.; I sometimes sprinkle this on savoury oats porridge, umpa and on cheese toast. Spending just 20-30 minutes in the kitchen will give you this rewarding podi, which has got more than a month shelf life. I sometimes pack this podi mixing in gingelly oil to go along with paniyaram or button idli in lil’M’s lunch box.

Karivepaku Karam Podi – Spicy Curry Leaves Powder

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 cups tightly packed Curry Leaves
• ½ cup Urad Dal
• 20 dry Red chillies
• 1 tbsp. Coriander seeds
• ½ tbsp. Cumin seeds
• 4 Cloves Garlic, peeled
• 1 small marble size Tamarind, washed
• 2 tbsp. Oil
• Salt, as per taste

PREPARATION:

• Thoroughly wash curry leaves. Drain the water and spread them evenly on a cotton cloth to dry. You can even sundry the leaves for 30 minutes or dry the leaves under fan until they are completely dried.

• In the meantime, dry roast urad dal on low flame by stirring continuously. When the urad dal turns light brown, remove on to a clean and dry kitchen plate and in the same pan dry roast coriander seeds for 2-3 minutes until they start to change color.

• Remove and leave to cool. Now add cumin seeds to the same pan and dry roast until they start to splutter. Remove and leave to cool.
• Now add 1 tbsp. of oil and fry dry red chilies until they start to turn light brown. (Fry on low heat, by stirring continuously). Remove and set aside to cool.

• If required add 1 tbsp. of oil and fry curry leaves on low flame by stirring continuously until they turn crisp. This will take nearly 12-15 minutes. When curry leaves turn crisp, remove and set aside to cool. (Don’t burn them)

If you can crush curry leaves with your fingers then they are fried.

• Upon cooling, add roasted urad dal to mixer jar and grind to smooth powder, then add fried dry red chillies and pulse for few minutes and then add roasted coriander seeds and cumin seeds. Pulse for another minute and add fried crisp curry leaves and grind until smooth or coarse powder.
• Now add garlic cloves, tamarind and salt. Grind until smooth or coarse (I like my karivepaku karam podi to be coarse).
• Leave this podi to cool completely before you transfer this to clean and dry air tight container.
• Use clean and dry spoon to use this podi. This karivepaku karam podi stays fresh for a month or more without even refrigerated.
• Add love to make this karivepaku karam podi taste ‘Yummy’.