Puli Upma or Puli Mav

Puli is tamarind in Tamil. This is another spicy and tangy dish variety that my mom would make. My dad would feast on this dish. This is a typical snack item made in his birth place Tiruchirapalli or Trichy and he used to always ask my mom to make these every Saturday for dinner. I also love this as it is spicy and tangy. Its is basically a dough made out of rice flour and water and cooked in oil.

Cook Time: 1 hr

Ingredients

• 1 and 1/4 cups Rice flour

• 4 tbsps Tamarind paste

• Salt, to taste

For tempering

• 6 tbsps Sesame oil

• 1 tsp Mustard seeds

• 2 tsps Urad dal

• 1 tsp Turmeric powder

• 7 Dry red chillies

• 1 tsp Hing

Instructions

1. Add 3 tbsp of tamarind paste to 1 cup of water and mix well

2. Add the rice flour to this and make a smooth dough

3. Heat a pan and add 2 tbsp sesame oil

4. Splutter mustard seeds, urad dal, hing, halved red chillies and sauté till urad dal gets light brown

5. Add the turmeric powder

6. Add the rice flour dough and start cooking this on medium flame

7. The rice flour will start to absorb oil and will start getting crispier

8. Keep adding 1 tbsp of oil at a time and sauté it on low flame till you get a good upma-resembling mixture (by this time, even the raw smell of the tamarind shouldd go away)

9. Serve this hot with fried appalam

Notes

• This snack needs a lot of patience and should be cooked on sim to medium flame.