Paruppu Urundai Kuzhambu is a popular dish of Tamil Nadu. Lentils are the major ingredients in this dish with slight variations from home to home. I soak, grind lentils and shape it like balls to cook directly in the boiling gravy. In this method, the lentils dissolve slightly in the gravy to give a wonderful taste.
Lentils are known as Paruppu in Tamil and Ball/Sphere shape is known as Urundai in Tamil. Paruppu Urundai looks like north Indian Kofta.
Ingredients
- For Paruppu Urundai
- Bengal gram – ½ cup
- Toor dal – ½ cup
- Pearl onions – 8 no
- Garlic – 2 cloves
- Green chilli – 4 no
- Coconut – 1 piece
- Turmeric powder – ½ tea spoon
- Red chilli powder – 1 tea spoon
- Rice flour – 1 table spoon
- Fennel seed – 1 table spoon
- Ginger – small piece
- Curry leaves – few
- Oil – 1 table spoon
- Salt – as per taste
- For gravy/curry
- Tamarind – small lemon size
- Pearl onion – 10 to 12 no
- Garlic – 3 cloves
- Green chilli – 2 no
- Tomato – 2 no
- Grated coconut – 3 table spoon
- Fennel seed – 1 table spoon
- Red chilli powder – 2 tea spoon
- Turmeric powder – ½ tea spoon
- Coriander powder – 2 table spoon
- Mustard, fenugreek, cumin seed – ½ tea spoon each
- Coriander curry leaves – few
- Oil – 1 table spoon
- Salt – as per taste
- Tamarind – small lemon size
Method
- Paruppu Urundai: Soak Bengal gram and toor dal for 2 hours; grind it to a coarse paste in the mixer for few seconds.
- Finely chop onion, green chilli, coconut, ginger, garlic and curry leaves (I did it in the food processer).
- Add this with ground gram paste; add rice flour, oil, salt, red chilli powder, fennel seed, turmeric powder and mix well.
- Gravy: First grind coconut, fennel seed with 2 piece of onion to a fine paste; then chop remaining onion, tomato, curry leaves, coriander leaves, green chilli and crush the garlic; soak tamarind and extract the pulp.
- Paruppu Urundai Kuzhambu: Heat a pan with oil and do the seasoning with mustard, fenugreek, cumin seed and curry leaves; add crushed garlic, chopped curry leaves, coriander leaves, green chilli and fry for few minutes; then add onion and fry.
- Add tomatoes and fry for few seconds.
- Now add all dry spices, salt and mix well.
- Add tamarind juice, 8 cups of water and boil for few minutes; add ground coconut paste and mix well.
- Take small amount of lentil paste, shape like a ball and add in the boiling gravy carefully; add some more balls like this and let the gravy boil (make sure that that each ball is free to boil without touching each other; the number of balls to be put can be decided accordingly).
- Lentil balls as they get cooked, will start floating one by one; after it starts floating, add next shift of balls and cook; repeat this process for remaining lentil paste (for the given quantity of ingredients, I got nearly 12 balls).
- Now Paruppu Urundai Kuzhambu is ready; garnish with coriander leaves and serve hot with steamed rice.
- Here is the cutaway section of a Paruppu Urundai.
Tips
- After adding lentil balls, never stir the gravy till all lentil balls float on the surface. The gravy will get thickened by the small amount of lentils dissolved in gravy. The balls do not break or dissolve fully as we add little rice flour to bind them.
{ 13 comments… add one }
lovely color….mouth watering…my favs…
My all time favourite. A proteinaceous treat. Love ur blog Kamala
Nice & different, i have never tried it before but looks really good..
kamala.,
Parippu urundai curry looks really good. I miss my mom now, as it her favorite.
gr8 recipe…i hv tried it before too…i also do it with a difference…i pressure cook the paruppu urundais before adding them to the gravy to save some time.
My cousin has tried it but the urandai become hard. i tried in this way i got it soft.
Thanks for uploading such a good dish. I did today .It came out very well.
hi i tried this recipe yesterday i dont why the balls became very hard like stone would you please suggest me i want to try again thanku in advance and have a nice weekend bye.
@ Anitha
If the lentil balls were hard like stone, the reasons may be
(i) if you grind soaked lentils to a fine paste instead of coarse paste
(ii) if you overcook lentil balls in the curry
(iii) if the rice flour quantity is more; rice flour is used only to bind the lentil balls
Thanks for your response.
its really good. its my favourite item . thank u kamala
Hi mam, i tried this last friday, it was amazing, i have also tried this before with my knowledge, but this time i cooked based on your recipe… it was perfect, too good.. yeah the lentils should not be fine paste but coarse, also water should not be added to the coarse… thank you
Really yummy tried it out and it turned well…..thanks for posting it..expecting more such dishes from you.
Wow awesome kulambu. Very neat and easy pictorial explanation the stepwise pictures are super. Please tell the tomotto in grams or cup measure. The tamarind in grams or spoon measure.