Mor Milagai

Sun-dried buttermilk chillies — fresh green chillies soaked in salted diluted yogurt (buttermilk) for two days, then spread on woven trays and dried in the summer sun until completely dehydrated and the surface becomes wrinkled and white-coated with the dried buttermilk. The dried chillies are stored and deep-fried to order in hot oil — they swell and blister instantly, softening slightly while the outer coating turns golden. The buttermilk soaking tempers the raw chilli heat into a rounder, more fermented heat with a slight tang; the deep-frying develops nutty, roasted flavour notes. Eaten alongside rice as an accent — one or two mor milagai with every mouthful of plain rice and ghee or rasam rice. The dried-chilli condiment that every Tamil Brahmin home prepares before the hot season ends.