Coconut Thogayal

Thengai (coconut) thogayal is one of the first few recipes that I learnt in my early days of cooking. Those were the times when I had the luxury of enjoying my mom 's cooking and not have to cook too often (really .. those were the days .. sighhh !!!!!). I had this problem of forgetting the recipes & ingredients that goes into each recipe. But, coconut thogayal was a cake-walk for me, everytime. This recipe uses just 5 ingredients - hing, urid dal, chillies, tamarind, coconut (salt & oil are the obvious ones) and it was so easy for me to remember (yayyy ...)!

I would have made sure that this recipe is featured in the food channel show "5-ingredient fix", if I were the host of that show :)

Coconut thogayal is a welcome change to the regular sambar/rasam routine. I love this thogayal when it is on the spicier side. Personally, I love thengai thogayal rice with appalam on the side.

Basic Info
Complexity - simple
Prep time - 25 mins (includes scraping fresh coconut)
Cook time - 10 mins
Serves - 3-4

Ingredients
Freshly grated coconut - 1.5 cups
Hing - 1 small piece
Whole urid dal - 2 tbsp
Dry red chillies - 5-6 nos (adjust to your spice level)
Green chilli - 1 no
Tamarind (soaked in hot water) - about the size of a gooseberry
Salt - to taste
Oil - 1 tsp

Method

Roast hing, urid dal, red chillies in a tsp of oil and set aside to cool.

After it is cooled, use a mixer to grind the fried items along with green chilli into a fine paste.  Then, add coconut, salt, tamarind and grind them all together. Use as little water as possible.

Coconut thogayal is ready to be mixed & relished with hot rice!

Note

• Use freshly grated coconut for maximum flavor.
• Grind fried items first, so that the spices are mixed evenly in the thogayal.
• When mixing with rice, add a tsp of ghee for wonderful aroma & taste.
• Coconut thogayal can be refrigerated and used upto 2/3 days.