Mint-Curry Leaves Chutney

Mint-Curry Leaves Chutney - Pudhina Karivepilai Thogayal

This pudhina-karivepilai thogayal is what I am frequently doing after they started to give bunches of curry leaves for free (they say so and I know there is nothing free in this world) in the vegetable shops.
Somehow, if I make karivepilai podi at home, my folks prefer to have just twice when it is still fresh. After that no one prefers it. So my beloved friend L gives me few spoons of fresh karivepilai podi when ever she makes and we love it 😋. Hence I make this refreshing chutney / thogayal with the curry leaves and mint leaves.

This mint and curry leaves chutney goes well with plain rice or curd rice or idli/dosa or tomato rice. There is no strict measurements of mint and curry leaves for this recipe. I just do with how much ever is left over in my fridge.

Let me show you how I do this thogayal.

Ingredients:

• Mint - 1 bunch
• Curry leaves - 1 cup pressed
• ginger - 1 (1 inch piece) 
• Dry red chillies - 4
• Green chillie - 1 (optional)
• Urad dhal - 2 tablespoons
• Tamarind - 1 small gooseberry size
• Salt - as per taste
• Coconut - 1/4 th of a big coconut
• Oil - to saute
• Asafoetida - 2 pinches

Procedure:

• Clean the mint leaves. Wash both mint leaves and curry leaves and keep them aside for the water to drain completely.
• Then, heat some oil in a pan. 
• Add the mint leaves, saute for couple of minutes till it just wilts.
• Then add another spoon of oil and roast the red chillies, green chilli (optional), ginger, tamarind and urad dhal separately.
• Transfer these roasted ingredients to a plate and let them cool.

• Now heat another spoon of oil and add the curry leaves. Roast them on low flame. The leaves get roasted with an excellent aroma. After 2 minutes, transfer this too to the plate to cool. 
• Now, except the urad dhal, take other roasted ingredients along with asafoetida, coconut, mint and curry leaves to the mixer.
• Add little water and grind this to a coarse chutney. 
• Add salt and run the mixer again till it is well blend.
• Now add the urad dhal and run the mixer final time till the urad dhal becomes a part of the chutney. The reason why I am grinding the urad dhal in the end is because, if we run the urad dhal in the beginning itself, then, the chutney will become a sort of gooey. If we add the urad dhal in the end and run the mixer, the urad dhal will remain coarse and crunchy.
• Here is the tasty, spicy, minty and herbal-icious chutney ready. Generally, I do not temper the mint chutney. So this chutney too goes without tempering.

You can also add left over coriander leaves to this chutney to add flavour and goodness of coriander leaves. I do this whenever I have coriander leaves at home. This time, since I did not have, I did not add the coriander leaves.

Happy cooking !!