Puli Inji is an indispensable part of the popular Kerala Onam Sadya. This is nothing but a spicy aromatic sweet, tangy sauce prepared by lightly sautéing ginger and green chillies with other condiments and simmering till it thickens.

Kerala (sadya) is incomplete without puli inji or inji puli. The various tongue tickling characters of this unique pickle like the sweetness of the jaggery, the hot spicy chillis, the tartness from the ginger all blend well to give a unique flavor to the taste buds and is an excellent accompaniment to dishes like idlis, dosas and curd rice. In my house this never stays long in the bottle and we find excuses to finish this up.

We make this very often along with other chutneys and pickles this is one of the must have pickle in our home. This is one of the many oldest authentic recipes from grandma days and from her kitchen passed on to her daughters and my childhood memories. There are two ways we prepare this delicious curry .

In method below we just chop the ginger to smaller pieces and cook along with chiies and tamrind extract .

In the second method , we fry the finely grated or finely chopped ginger till browned and then add to the tamrind chilliy sauce till it further reduces and becomes very dark and semi thick .

My personal favourite is the second one as it has some sharp spice from concentrated ginger , along with the sweetness and spice from chilies , tamrind and jaggery .

The first method is quicker and can be used for small quantities .

First method

Second Method

Ingredients:

• Ginger - 250g ginger , washed thoroughly , peeled and chopped finely . 

• 70 grams Tamarind soaked in warm water about 3 cups 

• 3-5 Green chilli chopped finely 

• 8-10 tbsp Jaggery or as needed 

• few strands of Curry leaves 

• 3 tbsp Coconut oil or as required for frying ginger , use same pan and oil for tempering and preparing the curry later . 

• 1/2 tsp Mustard seeds 

• 3-4 broken red Dry chilli 

• 1 .5 tsp Chilli powder 

• pinch of Turmeric powder 

• 1/4 tsp roasted methi seeds powder 

• 1/4 tsp Asafoetida powder as required Salt

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