Mor milagai recipe, Sun dried chilies, also called Sandige Menasu in Karnataka, is a popular sun-dried thing made in the summertime, using chilies and sour buttermilk. My mom makes mor milagai at home during summer and stores it for a year. Mor milgai is a perfect accompaniment for Curd rice, also used for making Puli upma, puli pongal, and raw mango rasam. The chillies are soaked in sour curd and sun-dried till they become crispy and stored in air-tight bottles. Whenever needed, we fry them in oil and use it. So why are we soaking the chillies in sour curd, sour curd balances the spiciness of the chillis. I always buy and keep a pack of store-bought Mor Milagai from shops. Last month when I went to Chennai, I saw a cart full of bright, green Thanjavur milagais, which are used to make this mor milagais, in the West Mambalam market. Though I don’t have a terrace or balcony at home, I still got some chilies and packed it carefully, and brought them home. Two years back I attempted making mor milgais at home, when my mom was here, but couldn’t dry it completely due to lack of direct sunlight.
I have a friend, who moved to our apartment last year and she lives in a house which has a huge terrace. So kept it at my house for 3 days and later passed it to my friend, and my friend’s mother-in-law took the complete responsibility of drying it to perfect crispiness and returned to me after a week. Many thanks to her initiative of doing this for me. Here in Singapore, we get rains often and so it took a week. For the summer in Chennai, it generally gets dried in 3 days. Let’s see how to make mor milagai at home.
Check out the Mor milagai sundal podi, Puli upma recipe, Mor kali recipe
Mor milagai recipe
Ingredients
- 3 cups Green chili
- ½ Thick Sour buttermilk
- Salt as needed
Instructions
- First make the sour buttermilk by keeping the buttermilk outside the refrigerator for a whole day.
- Wash the chilis and pat dry them. Slightly slit them in the center. This is to get the buttermilk mixture to seep inside the chillies. A small prick is fine.
- Put the chillies in a wide bowl, and pour the sour buttermilk on this. Add salt as needed. I used rock salt.
- Mix this well so that the chillies get nicely coated in the thick sour buttermilk.
- Let this soak for a 2 days. Cover it and keep it aside.
- Everyday morning using a clean dry spoon, mix this well.
- On the third day, take out the chillis only and spread this in a plate and keep it under the sunlight.
- Let the remaining buttermilk in the vessel be left in it covered.
- Once it is dried under sunlight for a whole day, take this back and put this into the buttermilk again.
- The buttermilk will not be more, it will be just 2-3 tbsp left.
- The next day again take out the chilies and sun dry them. By this time, the buttermilk must have completely absorbed, but if anything left, repeat the same next day.
- I didn't take step wise pictures after this as i have sent it for drying to my friend's house.
- Once all the buttermilk are completely absorbed, sun dry the chillies till they become crisp.
- Once they are crisp, store them in an airtight container and keep it in a dry place.
- Whenever needed, add 2 tsp of oil in a pan and saute few dried chillis till they turn crisp.
- Usually they deep fry the mor milagai and use it. If you wish to do it that way go ahead and do it.
Notes
1. My mom soak 1 tsp of fenugreek seeds| venthayam overnight and grind this into a fine paste and add it along with sour buttermilk. I somehow didn't like the texture of the venthayam in that, so skipped it.
2. Mor milagai tastes best with Thayir sadam and it's a popular combo of Tamilnadu.
Method with step by step pictures :
- First make the sour buttermilk by keeping the buttermilk outside the refrigerator for a whole day.
- Wash the chilis and pat dry them. Slightly slit them in the center. This is to get the buttermilk mixture to seep inside the chillies. A small prick is fine.
- Put the chillies in a wide bowl, and pour the sour buttermilk on this. Add salt as needed. I used rock salt.
- Mix this well so that the chillies get nicely coated in the thick sour buttermilk.
- Let this soak for 2 days. Cover it and keep it aside.
- Everyday morning using a clean dry spoon, mix this well.
- On the third day, take out the chillis only spread this in a plate, and keep it under the sunlight.
- Let the remaining buttermilk in the vessel be left in it covered.
- Once it is dried under sunlight for a whole day, take this back and put this into the buttermilk again.
- The buttermilk will not be more, it will be just 2-3 tbsps left.
- The next day again take out the chilies and sun dry them. By this time, the buttermilk must have been completely absorbed, but if anything is left, repeat the same next day.
- I didn’t take step-wise pictures after this as I have sent it for drying to my friend’s house.
- Once all the buttermilk is completely absorbed, sun dries the chillies till they become crisp.
- Once they are crisp, store them in an airtight container and keep them in a dry place.
- Whenever needed, add 2 tsp of oil in a pan and saute a few dried chillis till they turn crisp.
- Usually, they deep fry the mor milagai and use it. If you wish to do it that way go ahead and do it.
- My mom soaks 1 tsp of fenugreek seeds| venthayam overnight and grinds this into a fine paste and add it along with sour buttermilk. I somehow didn’t like the texture of the venthayam in that, so skipped it.
- Mor milagai tastes best with Thayir sadam and it’s a popular combo in Tamilnadu.
During this hot summer with Kambu koozh and kelvaragu koozh