So you are not ready to cook a full meal. You are tired.

Besides, its a bother to cook a regular kerala meal. You have to have the curry or the kootan, then the upperi or the dry vegetables, maybe papad, apart from pickle and other assorted items.

Whenever my mom would go visiting, my father would don the apron and test his culinary skills. Not one to match  the almost ritualistic efforts of my mom in the kitchen, he always managed to enthrall his audience with some smart tricks to bring about a different yet unique taste every time.

One of the tricks he regularly used is to mix nicely sliced small onions, raw tamarind, 1 or two green chilly, salt and a spoonful of coconut oil until they whole mixture exudes an aroma of its own. This is to be laboriously mixed to  piping hot rice,  the result is just heavenly.For a variation  he would use red chilly smoked directly on the gas stove instead of the green ones. This definitely ensured that neither me nor my younger brother ever complained of mom’s absence.

Well, one more little trick up his sleeve was to serve the famous gun powder or dosa podi as we call it mixed in coconut oil with rice. Gun powder or dosa podi is that secret recipe which can be your side dish for rice,dosa, idli or anything else. While there are en number of variations of the gun powder, I will share the recipe that  I grew up having.

The Gun Powder -Recipe

Ingredients

urad dal- 1 cup

rice- 1/2 a cup

full red chilly-3-4

hing-1/4 tsp

black pepper corns-a handful

salt- to taste

curry leaves-a handful

sesame seeds-2 tsp

Method

Saute urad dal till brown in a pan and keep aside. Saute rice,red chilly,hing,black pepper corns,curry leaves,sesame seeds.Powder all the ingredients in a mixie. Add salt to taste.

Your gun powder is ready. You can have it with dosa,idli,rice or chapati. You will get the typical kerala flavour if you add a tsp of coconut oil to 2 tsp of gun powder.