MOR KOZHAMBHU (Spiced Yogurt Gravy)

MOR KOZHAMBHU (Spiced Yogurt Gravy)
Ingredients
Thick Yogurt – 1 ½ cup
Freshly grated coconut – ¾ cup
Cumin seeds - 2 tsp.
Green chillies – 2
Ginger – A small slice
Tomato – 1
Tamarind paste – 1tsp
Rice or rice powder - 1 tsp.
Oil
Mustard - 1 tsp.
Udad Dal – 1 tsp
Fenugreek seeds – ½ tsp
Red chillies – 2 broken into halves
Asafetida – ½ tsp
Salt to taste
Curry leaves

Method
Chop the tomatoes into small cubes, in a mixie jar, take freshly grated coconut, cumin seeds, Green chillies, ginger, cubed tomatoes, tamarind paste, rice powder, some salt and a pinch of asafetida and grind well. The coconut milk should come out and all the ingredients should be ground well. Now add the yogurt to this mixture and grind in the mixie for another 2 minutes, till everything blends well into a uniform mixture.

Now add all this to a pan and add water till it is diluted. Allow it to simmer for a minute or two, the mixture should mix with the water and become uniform and it should just come to boiling point, if you allow it to boil too much, the water and yogurt will separate and the morkozhambu will not look or taste good. Remove from the flame. In a small pan, Take oil, add mustard seeds, udad dal, fenugreek seeds and the red chillies, when the mustard starts to crackle, add curry leaves, let it fry and add this to the Morkozhambu.

This is a quick and easy dish. It’s nutritious and taste good when eaten with hot plain rice. You can also eat this along with Dosai, Adai, Aapam or Upma.

Note: When you want to re-heat, keep on low flame and keep stirring, till the MOr kozhambu is warm. Don’t boil it.

Variations to the recipe

1. You can add boiled and cubed Chepankanzhangu(arbi, baby yam)
2. You can add boiled and cubed potatoes to the morkozhambu
3. You can add cubed tomatoes to the morkozhambu. But cook it in a little water first with some salt, before adding the morkozhambu. Since you can’t boil the morkozhambu too much, the tomatoes wont get cooked.
4. You can add ladies finger to the recipe. Cut the ladies finger into small roundels, fry them with a little salt and add to the mor-kozhambu.
5. You can add Paruppu Urundais(Lentil balls) to the morkozhambu.

(Refer to the South Indian recipes section of my blog to see the recipe of the paruppu urundai)

6. Incase u happen to make Ulundhu vadai(Medhu Vadai, Udad Vada) or Paruppu vadai(dal vadai). You can add that also to the Morkozhambu and it taste almost like dahi vada.
7. You can avoid the tomato in my recipe and just use the other ingredients and follow the above method
8. You can use Red chillies instead of green chillies to be grounded with the masala in my above recipe and follow the above method.
9. You can add roasted coriander seeds and grind along with the masala in the above recipe and follow the same method.