Bellam Pulusu /Mukkala Pulusu

This is yet another Andhra famous dish “Bellam Pulusu”.  Bellam is also called as Jaggery/Gudd.  Pulusu is like a stew. This bellam pulusu is a great combination along with mudda pappu (plain cooked toor dal) with hot rice and ghee. It is so mouth –watering dish. Try it once and let me know how you feel about it. As you are using all vegetables in it, it is a nutritious food also.

Ingredients:

• Bottle gourd - 1 cut into pieces of 2" size
• Tomatoes (Chopped) – 2 medium size
• Sweet Yam(Sliced) -6 pieces
• Green chillies- 5 chopped length wise
• Drum sticks – 2 (cut 3" long)
• Okra (Bendakayalu cut into half) -3
• Carrot – 2
• Tamarind Extract  -1/4 cup
• Jaggery/Bellam(according to taste) – 50 gms
• salt to taste
• Turmeric powder -1tsp
• Gram Flour/ Rice Flour – 1 small cup

Tempering /Tadka:

• Oil – 1tbsp
• Fenugreek seeds/Menthulu – 1tsp
• Mustard seeds/Avalu -1 tsp
• Red chillies (Halved)-2 or 3
• Asafoetida / Hing -1tsp

Method:

• Wash all the vegetables and keep them a side.
• Boil all the vegetables along with green chillies with adequate water and covered with a lid in a sauce pan (or) in a pressure cooker.  So that the chilli taste will also get blended along with the vegetables.
• Ensure that they should not become too soft (or) mushy
• Take a small bowl and put the rice flour in it and add little amount of water to make a batter consistency and add this batter to the cooked vegetables and let them boil, this will give the stew/ pulusu a thicker consistency.
• Grate the required amount of jaggery as per taste and mix it in the above mixture.
• Mix the tamarind extract also to the above mixture and mix well the mixture
• Boil the complete mixture for 5 min and add the tempering.
• Garnish with some curry leaves and Coriander leaves.

Note: The vegetables used can be anything of your choice. But normally carrot/bottle gourd /yam/sweet potato/eggplant/okra/tomato/drum sticks are used.