Karinaaranga Curry (Lemon Curry)

What’s the cross between a pickle and a curry? Yeah, it is Karinaaranga Curry!
Melody of flavors in your mouth and even after days of savoring it, you would keep on wondering whether it was a pickle or a curry. Whatever it was, you would go crazy searching for the recipe, asking your friends or googling to recreate it in your kitchen so you could feel it again…
One such dish, my dear friends, is the Lemon Curry.Karinaaranga (That is in Malayalam. A dear blogger Priya searched and read for me, and came up with the name Eureka Lemons) . Alternatively, you can use the Lemons we get here in U.S. Or any other ripe lemon which is not sweet and also not too sour.

Recipe:
2 Big Lemons steamed for 10 minutes until the skin becomes very soft. Cut them open, deseed them and dice them into bite sized pieces. For me, this came up to 3 cups. So if you don’t get the Eureka Lemons, use 4 or 5 Lemons.

Urad Dal, Split Channa Dal, Raw Rice – 1 table spoon each. Roast them in 2 tsp sesame oil. Add 1 tsp of fenugreek seeds to this and 1 sprig of curry leaves and roast. Add ½ tsp of asafotedia powder to this, mix and take off from fire.

Grind together to a fine paste with Coriander Powder – 1 tbsp, Red Chili Powder – 4 tsp, Turmeric Powder - 1tsp
Lime-sized tamarind, soaked in 2 cups of warm water. Squeeze out the sour water. Make sure the tamarind is not too much. If you are not sure, add tamarind water in parts to the curry.

To this tamarind water, add 2 cups of water, ground paste and the lemon pieces. Add salt and cook in low flame until the dish thickens. Add 1 tsp of jaggery or brown sugar to this and mix.

Heat 2 tsp of sesame oil; splutter 2 tsp of mustard seeds and 4 red chilies split and add to this dish.
Serve with rice. It's taste is so unique, I have no other words to describe other than 'seductive'. Stores really well in your refrigerator.