Paruppu Urundai kuzhambu + Pakkoda

Ingredients:

(For 2 persons)

For making balls:

Toor dal - 3/4 cup
Big onion 1 / small onion - 8
Ginger - a small piece
Garlic - 3 cloves
Green chili - 3
Red chili - 2
Garam masala powder - 1 teaspoon
Coconut scraped - 4 tablespoons
Chopped corriander leaves - as needed
Salt - as needed

For making gravy paste

Sombu / sauf - 1/2 tablespoon
Coconut scraped - 1/2 cup

For gravy - items to be sauted and mixed

Tomoto (big) - 1
Onion big - 1 / small onion - 8
Garlic - 3 cloves
Tamarind pulp - 1/4 cup
Red chili powder - 2 teaspoon
Corriander powder - 4 teaspoon
Turmeric powder - 1 teaspoon
Salt - as needed

For seasoning

Cinnamon - 3 pieces
Cloves - 2
Sauf - 1/2 tablespoon
Mustard seeds, urad dal - as needed
Curry leaves, corriander leaves - as needed
Oil - as needed
Procedure:

Making Dal Mix for the balls

• Soak the toor dal for almost 3 hours.
• Finely chop an onion, green chillies and 3 garlic cloves.
• Add oil to the frying pan and saute chopped onion, green chili and garlic cloves and fry till it gets golden brown.
• Drain water from dal, and add garam masala powder, chopped ginger, 4 tablespoons of scraped coconut, red chili, salt and grind to a paste.
• Add the sauted items, chopped corriander leaves to the dal mix.
• Make small tight balls to the size of a small laddu.

How to make the gravy

• Add oil to the pan and saute mustard seeds, urad dal, cinnamon, cloves, sauf, curry leaves.
• Add long sliced onion, 3 garlic  cloves and tomato and saute well.
• Add tamarind pulp, turmeric powder, red chili powder, corriander powder and water and allow to boil well.
• When the raw smell goes off, add coconut sauf paste and boil the mixture well.
• When it gets foamy, as seen in the picture, simmer the flame and add the balls one by one and cover the pan with lid.

• After sometime, turn the balls very carefully.
• It will take almost 10 minutes for the balls to get fully cooked. 

• Add oil to the pan and when it gets heated, take small pieces of the remaining mix and deep fry to get pakkoda.

Note:

• Instead of 3/4 cup of toor dal, half the measure of toor dal and half the measure of channa dal / kadalai paruppu can be taken. 
• If the balls are made tightly and turned properly, there is no chance that they will break; however, if you are afraid they will break, you can cook the balls in idli vessel steam and then add to the gravy.

Learnt from: Mrs. Padma, my mother