Chutni pudi - Instant side dish for any meal

Hope everyone had a great time this past week, we did. It was a very hectic but extremely enjoyable trip to the family wedding. Met all the family on my FIL's side, lot of the family on my MIL's side, my daughter got to meet lot of cousins and she upped her number of brothers (first & second cousins) by 3 and was in cloud nine :-). We felt happy to have made the trip. We didn't even have time to feel the jet lag and it is back to school, work and of course blogging today..

Since I was getting ready to be away for a week, I had not bought any new groceries for the past 2 weeks and had emptied my refrigerator of all the vegetables so I could start afresh. While coming back home to a clean fridge is a great idea, I had to grocery shop and start cooking almost immediately as we reached home. Made some pongal and rasam over the weekend and got my idli dough ready for the week. Since I didn't have the time to cut and cook vegetables, made a small quantity of fresh chantni pudi to go with the idlis as we all like to eat idlis with chutni pudi mixed in oil :-).

Chutni pudi is a very popular and versatile ready to eat powder that can be had with rice, idli, dosa, chapatis and even bread toast. It keeps well and stays fresh for a couple of weeks if preserved in an air tight container. Normally different house holds have different proportions of the dals and other ingredients and other variations, I have tailored my chutni pudi recipe to suit our tastes at home but I get lot of requests all the time from family & friends for some chutni pudi. This is how I make it.

What do you need to make Chutni pudi? 
1 cup chana dal/kadle bele
1/2 cup urad dal/uddina bele
1/2 cup grated dry coconut
6-8 red chilies (adjust to suit your spice tolerance)
1 cup of curry leaves (loosely filled cup)
1 small piece of tamarind
1 Tsp salt
1 Tsp sugar (optional)

For Vaggarane/tadka/seasoning:
1 Tsp cooking oil
1 Tsp mustard seeds
a generous pinch of asafoetida
2-3 curry leaves - chopped fine

How do you make Chutni pudi? 

• On medium heat dry roast chana dal, frequently stirring until the chana dal turns uniformly golden brown and gives out a nice roasted aroma, keep aside.
• Pour the urad dal and roast to get a similar color and aroma, keep aside.
• Roast dry coconut for a minute and keep aside.
• Roast red chilies for a minute or until you see small black spots forming on the skin, keep aside.
• Roast curry leaves with a drop of oil and tamarind until the leaves turn crisp and keep aside. 

• Let the ingredients cool down completely.
• Take all the above into your mixer/blender along with salt and sugar and grind to a homogenized rough powder. Ensure you do not make a smooth powder. 
• Heat oil in a small pan, add asafoetida and mustard, wait for mustard to crackle, switch off, add the chopped curry leaves and pour it over the ground chutni pudi. 

• Let cool, mix well and store in a jar. 
• We had fresh chutni pudi with idlis for dinner today. 

Variations: 

• Adjust the amount of curry leaves depending on your taste.
• Use byadagi chilies for a red colored chutni pudi and milder flavor, we are familiar with this color as it doesn't scare away little kids from trying a delicious side.
• Add a Tsp of brown sugar or jaggery instead of sugar or totally skip this.
• Seasoning the chutni pudi is optional, you can skip this step. 

Tips: 

• Roast all ingredients in medium low heat so that the dals get roasted completely and evenly.
• Curry leaves need to be roasted until they turn brittle to touch, pick tender leaves for maximum taste.