Curry Leaves Raita

I am sure you remember the Baby Corn Capsicum Pulao that I cooked for Cooking with Cookbook Challenge last week. Did you notice the raita by its side? Well, that raita is for this weeks edition of CCC.

Those who often drop by this space know that I love yogurt based dishes and raita is my favorite.I try to pair almost all the ice based dishes with raitas and love to try out new versions.

When I was going through my treasured cook books , I saw this note in which I had stuck paper cuttings of recipes. This is from one of those.

Long ago, in The Hindu newspaper, Sunday’s supplements were sure to carry a recipe section. I would cut them off and paste them onto a note book.I always waited for Sundays just to collect recipes!These days too the paper carried recipes but only occasionally and rarely on Sunday…

Now to the easy recipe…

I used:

Thick,fresh yogurt- 2 cups
Curry leaves- a handful, washed
Cumin seeds-1 teaspoon
Peppercorns- 1 teaspoon
Coconut- 1/8 cup, grated / chopped
Oil-1 teaspoon

To season

Oil- 1/2 teaspoon
Mustard seeds- 1 teaspoon
Urad dal-1/4 teaspoon
Channa dal-1/4 teaspoon

1.Heat oil in a pan and put in cumin seeds, pepper and curry leaves.Saute till the curry leaves shrink and the pepper pops. Grind this along with the coconut. Add a little water if needed but don;t add too much as the raita will become watery.

2.Whisk the curd/ yogurt with salt, add the ground paste

3.Mix well. Heat oil for seasoning and add the ingredients mentioned under ‘to season’. When the dal turns brown and the mustard pops, pour it over the raita and serve with a rice dish of your choice.