Karavapillai Podi

Our present neighbour has a mature curry leaves tree in their garden. Today they decided to prune it and hence we got a lot of curry leaves. To put it to good use, I decided to make a powder which could be eaten with hot rice and ghee. I zeroed in on this recipe on Rak's Kitchen and later I also stumbled upon the "Tried and Tasted" event by Nivedhanam. Honestly, this is a very nice way to promote a blog while giving due credit to the person behind all the effort. This event is the brain child of Zlamushka, which was taken over by Lakshmi from Kitchen Chronicles.

Since it is my first time making a Podi, I followed the recipe as mentioned in the original.

Ingredients (makes 1 medium sized jar):

1. 1 cup of curry leaves - washed and patted dry on a towel
2. 1/2 cup urad dal
3. 10 whole red chillies
4. 3 tbsp coconut
5. 1/2 tsp hing/asafoetida
6. Salt to taste

How I made it :

1. In the microwave, spread the curry leaves.
2. Microwave on high for 3 minutes. Leave it alone there until ready to grind.
3. In a kadai, dry roast coconut, hing powder and red chillies until the coconut gets a brownish color. This takes lesser time if you use coconut which has been in the frige for some time. Fresh coconut takes a longer time to brown. 
4. Allow that to cool.
5. In another pan, dry roast urad dal.
6. Grind the coconut mix and curry leaves.
7. Add salt and urad dal and grind to a coarse powder.
8. Spread on a newspaper to cool.
9. Once cool, use the newspaper to fill up a airtight jar.
10. Goes well with freshly cooked hot rice and ghee.