Kuthiravaali kali, a sweet made of barnyard millet and moong dal, on the auspicious occassion of Thiruvathira Festival.
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What is Aarudra/Thiruvathira
Thiruvathria, a shaivite festival celebrated on the full moon day in the month of margazhi(December-January). A festival, celebrated in Tamilnadu and Kerala with great significance. Aarudra/Thiruvadirai is the star of Lord shiva and Margazhi Thriuvadirai is celebrated as Aarudra Darisanam. Arudra Darshan celebrates this ecstatic cosmic dance of Lord Shiva.
The Food
The traditional offering made on this day is Thiruvathira kali and 7-kari kootu. The Thiruvathira kali , made with rice and moong dal, sweetened with jaggery and served with a stew made of 7 different vegetables. One might wonder how a sweet is paired with a savory dish. Most of the traditional food prepared for festivals signifies the balance in life, sweet and savory are part of our lives, one should know to accept them for a balanced life.
What is Barnyard Millet
A tiny, round, white grain that grows in the hilly areas. Millets are great replacement for rice. And particularly barnyard millet and kodo millet taste very close and similar to broken rice. Food made with millets is considered to be low in calories, has a low GI and a great source of iron and dietary fibre.
I personally prefers millets to rice as due to my health reasons. Almost all the rice-based dishes can be made with millets . You can see a wide variety of recipes in my page using millets here.
How to make Kali
To make this sweet mash, dry roast the millet in moong dal in a skillet. Add equal amoutns of milk and water and cook it soft. If you are vegan, avoid milk and cook it entirely with water.
While the millets is cooking, melt jaggery in water, strain for purities and keep aside until use. When the millets are soft, add strained jaggery water, add coconut and cardamom powder and cook until all the liquid is absorbed. Add some roasted cashewnuts to this and take it off heat. Serve the delicious kali with 7-kari kootu.
Kuthiravali Kali | Sweet dish made using millet
Ingredients
- ¾ cup kuthiravaalai/barnyard millet/jhangora you can replace it with any millet
- 3 tbsp moong dal
- ¾ cup jaggery
- ½ tsp cardamom powder
- ¼ cup freshly grated coconut
- 1 cup milk replace with plain water or coconut milk if vegan
- 2 cups water
- 2 tbsp ghee used oil if vegan
- 3 tbsp broken cashewnuts roasted
Instructions
- Take jaggery in pan, add about 1/4 cup water and mix well. Cook in a medium flame for the jaggery to melt. Strain and keep aside until use. This is to remove the impurities in the jaggery, if you know the jaggery is organic and clean, then use it as such in the recipe.
- In a hard-bottom, wide pan, take the millet and the dal together and dry roast it in a medium flame until they turn golden. Take care not to burn the ingredients. while the dal turn golden, the millet will turn a bit crisp.
- Now to this roasted millet-dal mixture, add milk and water, cook in a medium flame for about 10-12 minutes. Millets cook very fast, so do not leave it unattended. Around the said time, millet would have absorbed all the liquid and cooked soft.
- To this cooked mixture, add the strained jaggery water and mix well. Add coconut,ghee and cardamom powder and mix well.
- Let this again cook in a medium flame until the liquid is absorbed. Take it off the stove, add roasted cashewnuts and mix well. Serve warm along with 7-Kari Kootu
Serve this delicious kuthiravali kali with savory 7-kari kootu. Enjoy the combination of sweet and savory.
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An old post from December 2015, updated with new content for better engagement
delicious and healthy kali!!! I also wanted to try millets for kali this time, but skipped it… yours is looking awesome!!
Delicious treat. Love that you used millet. I always think it is an underappreciated grain. Thanks for sharing with MLLA. I'm a bit late, but the roundup will be up soon.
Superb pictures and well explained as if you demonstrating the cooking itself. Looks very yummy and delicious and rich as well. The picture props are very relevant. Thank you for the post.
nice share! Kali looks delicious. Love how you have used millets here, will definitely try this soon. thanks!