An authentic south Indian, tamarind based tangy curry with onions and garlic.
 This is one of my favorite curry/kuzhambu recipes. I can live with just this kuzhambu without having anything else for a week. I love this so much 🙂 My mom came to Montreal before a month for three days and she made this for me. I clicked this when she made it. I did not take great pictures as I was waiting to have it. 😀 Whatever my mom cooks I love 🙂 I guess it’s the same with all of you. But I love her tomato dal kurma, potato masala and channa masala a lot. And last month when i went to visit her at my sister place in Toronto, she brought me a suitcase full of cooking props, utensils and dresses and what not…You heard it right!! One full check in luggage! I just loved it 🙂 I was surprised. It was a 30 KG bag full of stuffs 🙂 ! Who will get me all that if not my Mom. 🙂 I was amazed 🙂 below is the picture with my Mom 🙂 Felt like sharing :)!
 Kuzhambu is a tangy curry. And you can make lots of different curries with veggeis or meat. Like Chicken curry, fish kuzhambu, okra curry, milagu kuzhambu and so on. Each gives different taste but the base curry is almost the same with onion, garlic and tomato.
Kuzhambu is different from sambhar, we don’t use much veggies like sambhar and no use of cooked dal. And kuzhambu will last for 3-4 days or even a week under refrigeration due to its high tamarind content.
- Sesame Oil - 2 tbsp
- Mustard seeds - ½ tsp
- urad dal – ¼ tsp
- Channa dal - ¼ tsp
- Vendayam / Fenugreek - ¼ tsp
- Curry Leaves - few
- Red Chilli - 1
- Shallots/ Small onions - 10-12, skin peeled
- Red onion - ½ cup, chopped finely
- Garlic - 10 pods
- Tomato - ¼ cup, chopped
- Turmeric Powder - 1 tsp
- Sambar powder - 3 tbsp
- Tamarind water - 4 cups
- Jaggery - 1tsp
- Salt - as needed
- Soak a big lemon sized tamarind in hot water for 5 minutes. Take the extract out this and set aside.
- Heat oil and throw in the mustard seeds, Fenugreek, channa dal, urad dal, curry leaves and red chilli. When the dal turns golden brown add the shallots and onions and garlic and fry them on a low flame till it turns brown. Do not burn it.
- Now add the tomato and turmeric powder and sauté till they are mushy.
- Now add the sambhar powder to the oil and sauté for few seconds and add the tamarind water.
- Let this boil in a medium low flame for 15 minutes or till it reaches a thick consistency.
- Add the required salt, switch off the flame, add jaggery and add few curry leaves.
- You can garnish with a tsp of sesame oil and coriander leaves if you like.
2. Frying sambar powder is a must step I would say. It gives great aroma to this recipe.
Serve this delicious kuzhambu with rice, papad and carrot poriyal/beans stir fry.
Hello suki thank you for your lovely recipes in the VENGAYA KUZHAMBU / ONION GARLIC CURRY you mention that you add urid and chana dhal do you mean ground up ?
No, we need to add them as such not ground up. Thank you. suganya