KARIBEVU CHUTNEY PUDI RECIPE

My aunt's recipe

Ingredients

1 cup (heaped) Curry leaves washed and towel dried
1/4 cup toor dal
1 tsp black pepper
8 dried red chillies byadagi or any mild heat variety
1/8 tsp asafoetida / hing
about 1 tsp size seeded dried tamarind
10 1 inch long 1 cm thick dried coconut (Kobri) slices
1 tsp grated or crushed jaggery
1 tsp peanut oil
salt to taste

Instructions

Heat oil in a skillet or cast iron kadai over medium heat. When oilis hot enough or shimmering, sauté tamarind until dark and crisp, without burning it and strain it onto a plate.
To the same oil, add black pepper and sauté until it just begins to crackle; strain onto the plate. In the remaining oil, sauté red chillies and curry leaves until crisp and aromatic. If it starts to smoke, you would have burnt it. Remove onto the plate.
Add toor dal and hing and dry roast until dal tuns light brown and opaque; remove onto the plate. Make sure to scrape out all the residual hing. Lastly, dry roast dry coconut (Cobri) pieces until light brown. This step removes any residual moisture from it and adds to the shelf life of the spice mix. Remove onto a separate plate. Let all roasted ingredients cool before grinding.
In a spice grinder or Indian mixer/grinder, grind the roasted spices adding salt, jaggery and roasted coconut pieces halfway. Do not grind it too fine, ground coffee consistency is just right.

Notes

Curry leaves dry up soon when stored in the refrigerator. If you have curry leaves that are dried up to begin with, do not wash them. Just wipe them with a dry cloth and use. When dried curry leaves are washed, they almost instantly lose aroma and tend to mold easily.

Do not dry roast red chillies without at least a drop of oil ever, unless you want your kitchen to be filled with pungently stinging and almost choking chilli fumes.