Karamani kuzhambu, south Indian style Lobia gravy - Black eyed pea gravy is a tangy gravy made with tamarind base and with south Indian spice powder to make it flavorful.
I love all kuzhambu made with legumes. The karamani lends a wonderful flavour to this kuzhambu and goes well with rice.
There are few variations in this recipe, how my MIL makes I have mentioned it in notes section. This is how my mom makes.
I was thinking to post this kuzhambu for a long time and got a request from a long time reader friend too.
But somehow kept postponing and forgot this for a while. Finally made this kuzhambu and loved it for lunch.
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Recipe card
Karamani kuzhambu recipe
Karamani kuzhambu, south Indian style Lobia gravy - Black eyed pea gravy is a tangy gravy made with tamarind base and with south Indian spice powder to make it flavorful.
Servings 4
Cup measurements
Ingredients
- ½ cup Black eyed pea
- 1 tablespoon Tamarind packed & levelled
- 5 Small onion shallots
- 8 Garlic cloves
- 1 tablespoon Sambar powder
- ¼ teaspoon Turmeric
- Salt
To temper
- 1 tablespoon Sesame oil
- ¼ teaspoon Fenugreek seeds
- ½ teaspoon Mustard
- 1 teaspoon Urad dal
- 1 teaspoon Toor dal
- 1 teaspoon Cumin seeds
- 1 Curry leaves sprig
Instructions
- Roast the karamani (Black eyed pea) in a hot pan in medium to low flame, until nice aroma comes. It will slightly change in colour or turn brown here and there.
- Pressure cook with little salt, water enough to immerse the legume, for 3 whistles in medium flame.
- Soak the tamarind in hot water meanwhile and extract tamarind juice.
- In a kadai, temper with the items given under ‘To temper’ table in order. Followed by finely chopped onion and garlic. Fry till the onion turns golden.
- Boil tamarind extract, salt, turmeric, sambar powder and add the tempered items to it. Add the cooked karamani.
- Simmer for 5-8 minutes until the gravy turns thicker.
Notes
- My MIL adds ½ chopped tomatoes after frying onion.
- She also adds ¼ cup ground coconut to the tamarind extract while boiling.
- Make sure to roast the karamani well for the perfect kuzhambu flavour.
- Use ½ teaspoon kashmiri red chilli along for appealing red colour.
- Some tamarind depending on old or new harvest gives different level of tanginess. So the key is to balance salt and spice according to it.
- Add ½ teaspoon corn flour to thicken quickly if your kuzhambu is not thickening fast.
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How to prepare karamani kuzhambu method:
- Roast the karamani (Black eyed pea) in a hot pan in medium to low flame, until nice aroma comes. It will slightly change in colour or turn brown here and there.
- Pressure cook with little salt, water enough to immerse the legume, for 3 whistles in medium flame. Soak the tamarind in hot water meanwhile and extract tamarind juice.
- In a kadai, temper with the items given under ‘To temper’ table in order. Followed by finely chopped onion and garlic. Fry till the onion turns golden.
- Boil tamarind extract, salt, turmeric, sambar powder and add the tempered items to it. Add the cooked karamani.
- Simmer for 5-8 minutes until the gravy turns thicker.
We had with keerai kootu and rice, very delicious karamani kuzhambu.
Veena Theagarajan
simple yet healthy kuzhambu nice clicks
Aksh
Nice:) Just a suggestion, hope you dont mind! Can you give the recipe names in english please
Tamilselvi Saravanan
Wow karamani kulambu. This is my favourite kulambu. My mom makes the similar way but she adds tomato. It's simple and very tasty. I request all to try this ones. Goes well with simple papad also
Karunakaran M kalathi
Nice post raks as usual,
This is one of my favorite recipe too. My version is similar, except the factor that i add tomato.
Also, one can add an twist to this recipe. In our version, we temper it finally with sauteed , crushed garlic pods with intact skin. It really works. You can once see yourself.
Traditionally Modern Food
Healthy and tasty Kuzhambu..looks delicious
Rafeeda AR
My favorite peas... I am going to make this curry with rice soon...
Raks anand
Sure. I try to write english names in my intro paragraph
Raks anand
Sure. I try to write english names in my intro paragraph
Blushing Shimmers
this one is so good..m trying this and will let you know the result...:) 🙂
Foody Buddy
my fav kulambu..looks tempting ...
Unknown
Normally the black eye pea should be soaked overnight right? We should roast it after that right?
Raks anand
No, if you soak overnight, then no need to roast. This is one version and roasting gives a nice flavour to the legume.
Pranesh Nath Jaganathan
I always find Rak's kitchen recipes simple to make and very delicious. This karaamani kuzhambu is no exception. I was wondering if I can replace the 8 pieces of garlic with ginger garlic paste [Find cutting garlic annoying :-)]If so, how many tsps/tbsps ?
Raks anand
I don't think ginger is needed for this one. If you have garlic paste, you can use 1 tsp 🙂
attorney chick
Hey this was amazing. We all loved it. Also please tell me where you got that cute little kuzhambu pot. It's really nice.
Raks anand
I got this in Isetan Singapore I guess 🙂
aishwarya sivakumar
Hi Raks
You are a saviour of my life. I always end up searching for recipes when I have fight with my hubby :p no other way to convince him and it always works.
However, I still make mistakes when it comes to extracting tamarind juice. I either add lots of water to it or very less water and spoils the taste of the dish. Can you please help me out to understand this alone. For sambar, small lemon size white tamarind, what is the proportion of water I should use and for Kara kuzhambu or vatha kuzhambu what should be proportion of tamarind and water.
Will be of great help if you make me understand this.
You are the reason for the small interest I am having now to cook (I am a person who don't like to cook at all). Thank you so much.. keep blogging..
Raks anand
Sure i will try to update this. I already have water quantity in my vendakkai sambar post I guess
Selvalakshmi
I make the similar way your MIL makes. Sometimes I saute onions and grind it with few boiled peas and then add to the kulambu to make it thicker and to increase the quantity