Puliyogare Recipe (Tamarind Rice Recipe)
Updated: August 10, 2022, By Swasthi
Puliyogare recipe with video – South Indian tamarind rice is known by different names in different states like puliyodarai, pulihora, puliyogare. Each of these are specific to a state and are made with little variations. This tamarind rice is commonly made in South Indian homes and even served as prasadam (offering) not only in temples but also in places where religious ceremonies like puja are held.
Sweet pongal, ven pongal, puliyogare, pulihora, curd rice, rice payasam are some of the most commonly offered foods in Hindu temples.
Puliyogare
Puliyogare is a Karnataka style tamarind rice which can be made in a jiffy if you have precooked rice. It can be served alone or with some happla, sandige, curd or fresh kosambari.
The recipe shared here is the way we make at home for festivals or special pooja. To make your meal complete, you can also have some curd rice along with it.
To make puliyogare, aged short grain rice is used. The rice is precooked to a grainy texture & cooled completely. Then it mixed with the prepared tempered spice powder known as puliyogare gojju.
Puliyogare podi is made by roasting lentils, red chilies and spices to perfection. Then it is powdered and cooked with the tempered tamarind mixture.
This tamarind mixture can also be stored in a bottle and used instantly to make tamarind rice. All you need to do is cook and cool rice. Then mix this tamarind mixture with the cooled rice.
Photo Guide
How to Make Puliyogare (Stepwise photos)
Preparation
1. Wash rice and cook it. The rice should be grainy and not mushy. Cool the rice and set aside.
2. Soak tamarind and jaggery in water.
3. Most times both these have debris or stones. So I prefer to soak and filter them. When the tamarind turns soft, squeeze it and set aside. If you want you can taste test this and add a bit more of jaggery.
4. Heat a kadai or pan. Roast urad dal, chana dal and red chilies on a medium heat. Dry roast until lightly golden.
5. Add pepper corn, methi seeds and coriander seeds. Continue to roast till methi smells good.
6. Add cumin, mustard and sesame seeds.
7. Add coconut. Keep stirring and roast until the coconut smells good.
8. Add hing. Turn off the stove and cool the ingredients.
9. Add them to a mixer jar.
10. Make a fine powder.
Make Puliyogare Paste
11. In the same kadai, add oil and heat it. Add mustard, chana dal, urad dal and peanuts.
12. When they turn golden, add curry leaves and red chilies.
13. When the leaves turn crisp, filter the tamarind pulp. Add salt.
14. When the tamarind mixture turns slightly thick, add the powder.
15. Mix well and cook until oil separates from the mixture.
16. Add the tamarind mixture to the cooled rice as needed. Do not add all the mixture at once. Add more as you mix. Adjust salt if needed.
Serve puliyogare after resting for a while.
For more Karantaka style recipes you may check
Bisi bele bath
Vangi bath
Akki roti
Mysore masala dosa
Ragi mudde
Recipe Card
Puliyogare Recipe | Tamarind Rice Recipe
For best results follow the step-by-step photos above the recipe card
Ingredients (US cup = 240ml )
- 1 cup rice (preferably short grain like sona masuri, ponni etc)
- 4 tablespoons tamarind Lemon sized ball (use as needed, more or less)
- 1 tablespoon jaggery grated (adjust to taste)
- ½ teaspoon salt (adjust to taste)
For tempering
- ½ teaspoon mustard seeds (rai)
- 2 to 3 tablespoons peanuts (or cashews)
- ½ to ¾ tablespoons chana dal (skinned bengal gram)
- ½ to ¾ tablespoons urad dal (skinned black gram)
- Salt (as needed)
- 1 to 2 green chilies slit
- 1 red chili broken
- 2 to 3 tablespoons oil
- 1 sprig curry leaves
- 1/8 teaspoon asafoetida (hing)
To roast and powder
- ¾ tablespoons chana dal
- ¾ tablespoons urad dal (skinned black gram)
- 2 to 3 red chilies broken (preferably byadgi)
- 1 tablespoons coriander seeds
- ½ tablespoons cumin (jeera)
- ½ teaspoon mustard seeds (rai)
- ¼ teaspoon methi seeds (fenugreek seeds)
- ¼ teaspoon pepper corn (powder)
- 1/8 teaspoon asafoetida (hing)
- 1 ½ tablespoons sesame seeds (preferably white)
- 2 to 3 tablespoons dried coconut (preferably copra)
Instructions
Preparation
- Wash rice a few times and cook to keep the rice grainy. Mushy rice doesn't go well to make puliyogare.
- I usually cook rice with 2 cups of water in a pressure cooker for 3 whistles following the pot-in-pot method.
- Spread the rice and cool it completely.
- Soak tamarind in ½ to ¾ cup water. Add jaggery and stir until it dissolves.
- When the tamarind turns soft, squeeze it well with your fingers and extract juice.
- Taste test this and if you want it slightly more sweeter, add a bit more of jaggery. The sweetness reduces as you cook down. I prefer to pass it through a filter. Set this aside.
Make puliyogare powder
- Heat a pan on a low to medium flame. Dry roast chana dal, urad dal and red chilies until lightly golden.
- Add pepper corn. methi seeds and coriander seeds.
- Continue to roast stirring often until methi begins to smell good.
- Add cumin, mustard, sesame seeds and coconut. Continue to roast stirring continuously.
- When the coconut begins to smell good. Add hing.
- Switch off the stove and cool this completely.
- Powder this as finely as possible in a blender. Set this aside.
How to make puliyogare
- Heat the same pan with oil and add mustard seeds.
- When they begin to crackle, add dals and peanuts.
- Roast them until lightly golden. Then add curry leaves, green chilies and red chilies.
- When the peanuts and dal turn completely golden, add hing.
- Pour the tamarind and jaggery water and stir.
- Add turmeric and salt. Stir and begin to cook until slightly thick.
- Then add the powder little by little and mix.
- If the mixture becomes too thick, then add some more water to the tamarind and squeeze. Pour this water back to the pan.
- Stir and cook on a medium heat until it thickens.
- You can add 1 tbsp oil at this moment.
- Cook on a low heat until the mixture turns thick and begins to leave oil. Add more salt if needed.
- Add this to the cooled rice and mix. Do not add the entire mixture at one time.
- Add little by little as needed and mix to prevent too much of puliyogare gojju in your rice.
- You may be left with some extra puliyogare mix, which you can use up the next few days.
- Allow puliyogare to absorb the flavors for about 30 mins then serve.
- Usually tamarind rice is served without any accompaniment. You can serve it with some plain curd.
Notes
Video
NUTRITION INFO (estimation only)
© Swasthi’s Recipes
About Swasthi
I’m Swasthi Shreekanth, the recipe developer, food photographer & food writer behind Swasthi’s Recipes. My aim is to help you cook great Indian food with my time-tested recipes. After 2 decades of experience in practical Indian cooking I started this blog to help people cook better & more often at home. Whether you are a novice or an experienced cook I am sure Swasthi’s Recipes will assist you to enhance your cooking skills. More about me
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Comments
Wonderful recipe swathi sis….. i love it…. i can feel the taste when i just read ur photo guide….. great job!!!!!!
Thank you Navi.
Came out so well. Delicious 😋
Love this tamarind rice. Made it and turned out perfect.
Thank you! This turned out exactly the way I expected. I used 2 tsps of Indian tamarind concentrate and half cup water. Amazing flavors.
Glad to know Kaveri. Thank you so much!
Hi Swasthi, the proportion of tamarind to jaggery to spice is off. You should’ve specified only around 2 tsp of jaggery instead of 2 tbsp. Thanks for sharing this recipe but I’d recommend reconsidering those proportions.
Hi Uma,
This is a traditional recipe that can’t go wrong. I don’t know what kind of tamarind you are using. South Indian tamarind is too sour and requires more jaggery to balance the flavors. With all those ground lentils and spices when the whole thing is cooked, the jaggery taste is not felt much. Anyhow I have updated the post with lesser jaggery and to adjust later. Hope this helps.
Hi Swasthi ! I have a doubt – in the recipe card you mentioned 4 tbsp tamarind. Is this tamarind paste or solid tamarind which has to be soaked. I have only tamarind paste. Love your recipes. Have already made your veg pulao, paneer butter masala, rajma, khichdi, dal fry, tips for making no-churn ice cream. All were fantastic ! Thank you for sharing your recipes !!!!
Hi Tina
So glad to know the recipes turned out good. For this recipe, use 4 tbsps of solid dry tamarind, the same way I have shown in the pictures and video.
We live in Toronto and our roots are in Bangalore. Our grand daughter here, 13, wanted us to make what she calls KAMALA RICE for her. She is a fan of Kamala Harris who seems to have said she likes Tamarind Rice !
We use the exact recipe you described and she liked it very much,
Hello Sir,
So happy to know your grand daughter liked it. Thanks for leaving a comment.
🙂
Thank you so much for Tamrind rice recipe. Will try it.
Its nice.. I didn’t used sesame and methi.. I already have the powder with all other ingredeints. so used that .. It is tasty and can be prepared instantly. Thanks for the receipe.
Welcome Radhika
Glad to know!
But I have used new sesame oil only…. Which brand is good please suggest
Srivani,
Okay I understand. The same thing happened with me last year. I had found my new bottle of unrefined cold pressed sesame oil tasted bitter though it was within the expiry date. I don’t remember the brand but it was from Tamilnadu or Kerala. I think it happens with unrefined oil. You can try Natureland organic white sesame oil.
Hi I have tried this recipe with sesame oil… It turned out bitter… I have reduced jaggery bcoz we like only spicy taste…
Pls help
Hi,
There is no fix to this.
Your sesame oil must have gone rancid.So it is tasting bitter.
But I have used new sesame oil only…. Which brand is good please suggest
aap ki sabhi recipe mujhe achi lagti hai .aur sabse achha unko batane ka dhang .aaj ke samay me jaha bahut se logo ko khana banana nahi aata hai aap ki recipe padkar aram se bana sakta hai. aap har ek point ki depth me jakar use explain karti hai.
Thank you so much Pratima
Glad you like the recipes
🙂
Hi
I regularly follow your recipe and tried this too taste good, but I unable to get the flavor seen very frequently during festivals
HI Srikanth,
Thanks for following! Are you looking for a Andhra style pulihora recipe? This one is Karnataka style.
Hi,
My son wanted to have tamrind rice.We tried this reciepe,it turned out good n tasty,my mom who is a great cook herself too liked it.Thanks a ton !
Hi Charu
You are welcome! Glad you all like it. Thank you!
Hi Swasthi, hope you are doing fine. I prepare puliyogare twice a week for my kid’s lunch box. Till now I used readymade puliyogare Powder from MTR. Now planning to follow your recipe and make the powder at home. For 200 gm powder how do I multiply the given ingredients? If I want to keep gojju ready should I keep the powder solely in refrigerator and freshly make the tamarind jaggery pulp whenever required ? Or can I mix them together and refrigerate ? Once one of my neighbours in Bangalore gave me a bottle of homemade gojju ( powder and pulp mixed) from her native, which I refrigerated and used for a month. Please help me with the proportions and let me know which is the best way to preserve it, dry or mixed with pulp.
Thanks in advance. And no hurry 🙂
Hi Tanu,
Yes doing good! Hope you all had a great time this Navratri! I have no idea in grams. To store I make this slightly different. Just soak, filter & cook the tamarind and jaggery together until it reduces to a slightly thick paste. Add turmeric and cool this. Refrigerate in a glass bottle. This keeps good for 4 to 6 weeks or even longer. Make the powder and keep it separately in the fridge for 6 to 8 weeks. This may go rancid at room temperature due to coconut. The day you want to make puliyogare, make the tempering and then add tamarind along with powder. Mix and just pour little water to cook for a while. I don’t follow any measurements for this and just do it approximately. Add more tamarind if you want to make it more tangy. If you want to make it more flavorful, add more powder & pour little more water. If you make this a few times with 1 to 2 servings then you will know how much to actually use. This method I find it super easy. I use 200 grams tamarind at one time to make the paste. Then if I do not have the powder, then I use the sambar powder. It tastes almost the same except there is no coconut in sambar powder.
You can also make the entire puliyogare mix at one time and refrigerate for about 1 to 2 months. My kids don’t like the soaked up peanuts & dal. So I do it as mentioned above. Try with a small quantity as I mentioned above and then see what works for you. Hope this helps.
Thanks a ton for your detailed reply. Will make the powder and tamarind-jaggery-pulp separately and refrigerate. We too don’t like the soaked peanut and not satisfied with the least quantity of peanut available in the store-bought powder. Hence I used to mix up lots of roasted peanuts additionally with the rice while tempering.
Substituting with sambar powder is innovative. Will try that soon.
Yes but pls note only my homemade sambar powder works. The store bought one have lot of chilies so it will not work.
Very clear and precise , instructions. Thank you. Will try and let you know how it turns out.
Welcome Chitra
Can we store the masala in a jar for some days ????
Hi Ayesha
Yes you can store this for about 10 days without refrigeration. Make sure you cook the mixture until oil separates. It keeps good in the fridge for more than a month
Its wonderful recipe. I made this recipe last Sunday, Its really easy to make & its tangy taste was awesome. I loved It! Thank you for sharing it!!!!!