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Friday, October 2, 2009

NELLIKAI THOGAYAL

We can proudly say: "An Amla a day keeps the doctor away". Known well as Nellikkai in Tamil and Amla in Hindi, the Indian gooseberry contains Vitamin C and is very good for health. It is slightly sour, pungent, astringent, and sweet too. During my childhood, I used to eat a gooseberry and immediately drink water and love to feel a sweet taste in the tongue.

Nellikai is used on Dwadashi day in any form, preferably nellikai pachadi or nellikai thogayal, as it is beneficial and regulates the acidity after fasting on an Ekadashi day, prior to Dwadashi day.

INGREDIENTS:

Big nellikai(Amla) - 3
Salt - as per taste
Green chillies - 3 to 4
Scraped coconut - 1 tablespoon
Mustard seeds - 1/4 tsp.
Urad dhal - 1/2 tsp.

METHOD:

Steam cook nellikai and discard the seeds. Mash the cooked nellikai using your hand. In a mixie, grind the green chillies, salt and scraped coconut, add mashed nellikai and give it a whip. Season it with mustard seeds and urad dhal.

Note:
You can also pressure cook the amla by keeping it in a separate vessel while cooking toor dhal or rice.Green chillies compensate the sour taste of amla.

11 comments :

  1. Wow sounds yum and surely very healthy.

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  2. Good recipe Shanthi Maami - i should give it a try sometime but its hard to find nellikai here.

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  3. Very interesting recipe Shanthi! I will try this.

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  4. Delicious thogayal, had it long back..missing it truly..

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  5. gooseberry pickle looks interesting and yummy :)

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  6. I used to do the same, eat nellikkai and drink water and get a sour throat too:( but cannot stop, now I keep thokku in a bottle for months on!

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  7. yummy yummy yummy வேற என்ன சொல்ல ?

    அன்புடன்,

    அம்மு.

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  8. that's a good one, i used to make pachadi and pickles out of it, now i don't see them here so sad, or i could have tried it out..!!

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  9. sounds very interesting. i will try it soon.
    we used to make pachadi for duvadeshi. meera

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  10. hi shanthi, i too am a fellow iyengar and love our traditional style of cooking. for this, i roast urad dhal with hing pieces, and then in the end, toss in the green chillies, and grind it with coconut, deseeded cooked nellikkaai and salt and that comes out great too.

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