KARUVADAGAM[கருவடகம்]

Karuvadagam is common in all parts of Tamilnadu. This is a combination of small onions, garlic fakes, fenugreek seeds, etc and making this is a long process. Usually this is being prepared in hot summer days. This karavadagam is used for making delicious chutney varieties and also used in meen kuzhambu. Old people will peel off kilos of sambar onions and garlic flakes before the preparation of this karuvadagam. This can be stored for years. I am keeping them in a glass jar. This is the third year and still I have some. Hopefully I will prepare this next year when I go to Thanjavur.





Ingredients:

Small onions-3 kg,
6 whole garlic pods,
Mustard seeds-200gms,
Fenugreek seeds-100gms,
Split black gram-250gms,
Cumin seeds-250grams,
Salt especially crystal salt-2 handfuls,
Castor oil-200ml.

Procedure:

Peel off the outer skins and chop onions and garlic finely.
Add all the other things with it.
These combined ingredients are always smashed in an ‘ural’ lightly.
Instead you can crush them in a mixi lightly so that they can be shaped into lemon sized balls.
Take care not to crush them in full force then the juice will ooze out.
Make the balls and place them all in a flat plate especially bamboo plate.
Dry them in hot sun.
In the evening, break all of them, add half of the castor oil, mix well and make balls again.
In the morning, place them on the plate and again let them dry on the heat of the sun.
Again in the evening do the same process using the other half portion of the castor oil.
These balls must be dried in the hot sun for 4 or 5 days until they are well dried.
Then you can store in ajar.
You can keep them for a whole year-even for more days.