My Dappalam runneth over:P

My neighbor, G,  is a god- send. After a long, sad, bad day at work the very thought of slaving in the kitchen was sending me into a blue funk. With a heavy heart, I trudged up the stairs only to be received with a plate of piping hot ‘Dappalam’ that my neighbor had made. I kind of assumed that   a dappalam was the telugu word for the tamil 'appalam' (pappad). Anyway, nothing prepared me for the sheer, pure awesomeness that was this simple dish.
Some types of food send you into a happy tizzy. This is one such creation. It’s light, healthy and very easy to make. The net is full of variations of this recipe and I’ve tried most of them…but nothing and I repeat NOTHING comes close to replicating the flavor and taste of G’s version.

Here is how you make magic :

• Take onions(1), tomatoes(3), sweet potato(1/2), dosakaya(1), yellow pumpkin(1/2) & kaddu(1/2) and chop roughly into big, huge pieces. It doesn’t matter if you don’t have sweet potatoes or dosakaya handy but make sure you have onions, tomatoes, kaddu and pumkin for sure.
• Now take a kadai, add a little bit of oil  and toss all these veggies in and dry roast them around the pan for a bit. Add salt as required.
• Following this add enough water  to submerge the veggies.
• Add  red chilli powder and turmeric and cook until the mix comes to a boil.
• Once they come to a boil add a table spoon of tamarind paste (The quantity used must be less than that used while making sambhar).
• When the raw smell of tamarind has passed. Your dappalam is ready. Finish by tossing in the tadka.

For the tadka: Take a little bit of ghee and add mustard, urad dal , jeera, garlic(if you’re a fan), red chillies, plenty of hing & Curry leaves. Once they start spluttering about add them to the dappalam.

 Easy-peasy!