Lunch Menu | Tamil New year Special | South Indian Lunch

      Being a Tamilian and a blogger,i want to celebrate this Tamil new year with a special lunch.Tamil new year falls on April month 14 or 15 th every year.First month of Tamil is "chithirai" where the sun is at its peak(Now sun shows his face even before chithirai oh no!!!).

How Tamil new Year is celebrated:
In some houses fruits along with money,turmeric,beetle leaf,flowers  are placed on a tray along with water and mirror to face all of the above.At new year morning, kids and adults have  to see these first. hoping/wishing  luck for the up coming new year.

Season:
This is official start of summer months and best mango season.Mom makes all kind recipe with mango like maa vathal,thokku,sambar even sabudana vadam or rice vadam.We kids enjoy summer season/ the holiday season by playing ,playing and more playing.Now kids can't enjoy their summers they got screwed up with summer camps.
    Previous year i posted a simple lunch thali.This year lunch menu has more items,i still want to include some more,but was not able to do it.This is going to be a long post,I have given the ingredients needed for the entire lunch menu preparation.You can change sambar,side dish in the menu as you wish.

                      Lunch Menu | Tamil New Year Special | South Indian Lunch

                      Tamil New year special south Indian lunch menu

 Cuisine: South Indian  Category:Lunch thali  Serves:3 -4 people   Prep time:50-60 minutes Cook time:1 hour 30 minutes Total time:2 hours 30 minutes


Menu:

• Lemon rasam
• Sambar with Vendakkai
• Poondu kulambu aka vengayam vellai poondu kulambu
• Beetroot kola
• Beans poriyal
• Cabbage kootu
• Vadai(soak it before 2 hours)
• Poli/Coconut poli(do it previous day)
• Curd(prepare it the previous day)
• Rice

Ingredients needed for entire lunch menu:

•  10 okra.
• 5 large clove garlic.
• 1 big onion.
• 4-5 leaf cabbage.   
• 1 tsp turmeric.
• 1 cup urad dal.
• 1 green chili.
• 1/2 pound beans(1/4 kg)
• 1/2 lime (juice).
• 1 large country tomato/thakkali.
• lemon sized tamarind.
• 1/2 cup toor dal.
• 1 medium beetroot.
• 2 tbsp chana and moong dal/kadala and pasi parrupu.
• 2 red chilies.
• 1/2 tsp black pepper,1/2 tsp jeera,1 tsp coriander seeds,1 garlic pod.
• Coriander leaves for garnishing.
• salt required.

To temper:

• Cooking oil for tempering + 1 tbsp gingelly oil
• 1 tsp mustard seeds.
• 1 tsp urad dal.
• 1/2 tsp jeera/jeeragam.
• few curry leaves.
• 1/2 tsp fenugreek seeds/vendhayam.
• hing. 

To grind:

• 2 tsp coconut.
• 1 tsp fennel.
• 1/2 tsp jeera.
• 2 small red chilies.

Preparation/planning:

• Soak urad dal for 2 hours before you start cooking.
• Soak 1/4 cup toor dal ,half an hour before cooking.
• Pressure cook 1/4 cup toor dal with hing,turmeric.
• Chop cabbage ,onion,tomato,garlic,beans.
• Soak tamarind in warm water.
• Grate beetroot and keep it ready.If you want the kola to cook early ,squeeze out excess water from beetroot.
• Before you start cooking,add urad dal to grinder.Add water whenever required.Keep the vada batter aside. we are going to do vadai at last.

How to make beans poriyal:

• Add required oil to tava.
• Add mustard and urad dal along with 1 red chili.
• Add finely chopped beans ,enough salt.
• Cover it and cook for 10 -15 minutes, until the raw smell goes off .
• Beans poriyal is ready.

Lets start cooking the new year lunch menu:

• Keep cabbage kootu in one pressure cooker.
• In the middle of cooking, you can pressure cook the rice.If you follow old method(vadikura sadam) of cooking the rice then keep the rice in one stove.So before you finish cooking vegetables, rice will be ready.
• Prepare beans stir fry.This can be done in 10-15 minutes from cutting to cooking.
• Get the juice out of tamarind,we already soaked them in water before we start cooking.
• Prepare vellai poondu vengaya kulambu.This is going to take little more time than others.
• Drain off the excess water from toor dal.
• Grind it to coarse paste along with other "to grind" ingredients.
• Add beetroot to the ground dal mixture and steam it for 10-15 minutes.
• Add enough oil and saute this in one stove.
• We are almost done with half of the menu.Ground batter for vada,prepared vengayam vellai poondu kulambu,beetroot kola,cabbage kootu,beans stir fry and rice.Now rasam,sambar is remaining.If you have homemade rasam powder then rasam can be done in 15 minutes.

How to make vendakkai sambar:

• Add oil to tava and add mustard,urad dal .
• When mustard seeds pops and urad dal changes color,add chopped onions and saute until translucent.
• Add tomatoes and cook them through.
• Add vendakkai and saute it until the slime goes off.
• Now add sambar powder and saute it for a minute.
• Add this to already pressure cooked toor dal along with tamarind paste.Pressure cook it for 1 whistles.
• Vendakkai sambar is ready.

Now we are reaching our finishing stage of cooking our south Indian lunch menu..

• If you don't have rasam powder make rasam powder with pepper,jeera,red chili and little coriander seeds.Grind the items and cook it low flame.
• Keep the rice pressure cooker,if you have not done it before.
• Now clean off counters and be ready for making vadai.
• Get a help of some one to take off the vada's,if you are really in a hurry.
• Lunch Menu is ready to be served.Enjoy these with your family.

அனைவருக்கும் இனிய தமிழ் புத்தாண்டு வாழ்த்துக்கல்(il ) is wrong but i can't change it ..

Linking this to soooriya's event