Veppampoo Podi / Neem flower powder
Veppampoo or Neem flower is widely used in Indian cooking. It has lot of medicinal properties. It has a bitter taste. Its good to use fresh neem flowers in cooking. They are so small and it is a tedious job to collect them. We have a Neem tree in our home. My mom spread a clean cloth under the tree and leave it. The flowers that fall are collected on the cloth. She then patiently removes all the dust particles. If we are going to use it immediately, then you can proceed in using it. But if you want to collect and store it for a long time, then sun dry it. My mom Sun dries these neem flowers and store it in a bottle. They stay for a long time. We can use this dried ones to make any recipe. Some of the recipes made with Neem flowers / veppampoo are Veppampoo rasam, Veppampoo thogayal, Veppampoo podi. It is also used in making the famous Pachadi on Tamil New Year.Here I am making this recipe for A to Z recipe Challenge where the bloggers choose an ingredient with an alphabet and make a recipe out of this. This month it is letter ‘N’ and I choose Neem flower as an ingredient.Please Check my other podi recipesDosai milagai podi / idli podiBisi bele bath podi Vangibath podiGarlic paruppu podi Mangalore rasam podi Karuveppilai podi Rasam podi
Equipment
- Mixie
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp Channa dal - 2 tbsp
- 4 tbsp Toor dal - 4 tbsp
- 2 tbsp Urad dal - 2 tbsp
- 8 nos Bedigi chilli - 8 nos
- 1/3rd cup Neem flower / Veppampoo - 1/3 rd cup
- 1/4th cup Dried curry leaves - 1/4 th cup
- As req Salt - As req
Instructions
- Take a pan and add channa dal. Keep it in medium flame and roast it until they are golden brown. Once they turn golden brown, transfer it to a plate.
- In the same pan, add toor dal and roast it until golden brown and transfer to a plate.
- Then add urad dal and roast it in the same like we roasted the other two dal.
- Add red chilli (bedigi) and slightly roast it in low flame.
- Then add the dried neem flower and slightly heat it. There is no need to roast well.
- Now all the ingredients to be roasted are done.
- Along with this take dried curry leaves and the required amount of salt for this powder.
- Allow al the ingredients to cool and grind them to a fine powder.
- Veppampoo podi / Neem flower powder is ready.
- We can serve this with idli, dosai or with hot rice and a dollop of ghee.
Video
Notes
- If you are using fresh curry leaves, you have to sun dry or roast it to get rid of the moisture.
- I have used Bedigi chilli that gives beautiful colour to the powder but less spicy. So if using guntur chilli or any other spicy chilli, use less numbers.