Cabbage Pachadi

This Cabbage Thuvayal or Cabbage Chutney or Cabbage Pachadi is a tried and tasted recipe from The Singing Chef. This month, her blog is the featured blog on Tried and Tasted, hosted by Divya, an event started by Zlamushka.  When I saw the event announcement, I had bookmarked baked stuffed chilies from Raaga’s blog. I bought the ingredients too, but never got around to bake it. Last week, when Raaga posted Cabbage Thuvayal, I decided to try this instead. I am glad I tried! I itched to modify the recipe but stuck to the original recipe, with one change. I cooked cabbage along with urad dal and dry chilies, instead of sauteing them separately. I made triple the recipe.

Source: Raaga of The Sing Chef

Total Time: 15 minutes
Preparation Time: 5 minutes (excludes cooling time)
Cooking Time: 10 minutes
Yields: 2 cups

Print Recipe

• 2 tbsp or 6 tsp Oil
• 9 Dry Chilies
• 2 tbsp or 6 tsp Urad Dal
• ¼ tsp Turmeric Powder
• 3 cups chopped Cabbage
• Salt to taste
• 1 ½ tbsp Tamarind Paste
• Tempering
  • 1 tbsp or 3 tsp Oil
  • 1 tsp Mustard Seeds
  • ½ tsp Asafoetida
  • 7-8 Curry Leaves

• Heat 2 tbsp of oil in a pan, add urad dal. When the dal turns light brown, add dry chilies and fry for a minute or until they become dark brown.
• Add turmeric and cabbage and saute for couple of minutes.
• Cover and cook on medium heat for 5 minutes or until the cabbage is tender.
• Turn of the heat, add salt and tamarind paste to the cabbage and let it cool.
• Once cool, grind it to a fine paste adding some water.
• For tempering, take a pan and heat the oil, add mustard seeds. When the seeds sputter, add curry leaves and asafoetida. Turn off the heat and add the tempering to the ground chutney.
• Serve it with rice or idli or dosa. Yesterday I ate it with rice for lunch and this morning, I served it with dosa!

If you noticed, the color of the chutney in the first pictures varies from the second. That is because I took these two pictures in different settings. The first picture, I took it in my kitchen under the kitchen light and the second near the window, hoping to get a better picture under some natural sunlight. Unfortunately, yesterday being a rainy day, there was very little sunlight. The actual color of the chutney was somewhere in between and perhaps closer to the color in the second pictures. I liked the color in the first picture hence, put up that picture too! Anyway, either depict the actual color 🙁

Update Feb 21, 2011: This chutney has become a regular at my home and I modified the recipe a little.  I am using both red and green chilies and I like this taste better than the one prepared with just red chilies.  I add 4-5 dry red chilies and 4-5 green chilies.   Also, I skip the tempering.  I add all the ingredients listed under tempering along with the chilies and saute  the cabbage.

This pachadi is also making its entry to Think Spice Think: Heeng hosted by Fazela, an event started by Sunita and to Health Nut Challenge 5: Crucial Cruciferous.