Aadi 18 Recipes | Aadi Perukku Lunch Menu | South Indian Variety Rice Menu

Aadi 18 / Aadi Perukku special recipes or Lunch Menu. Aadi perukku or Aadi 18 is celebrated on the 18th day of Tamil Month Aadi. This festival is common in South India and is celebrated as a tribute to water's life sustaining properties. My Mom used to make variety rice, payasam and vada on this special day. I prepared this Variety rice platter for last year's Aadi Perukku and did not get time post it and was lying in the draft for almost a year. Today thought of sharing it as tomorrow is Aadi 18 and this post may help you to prepare your lunch menu.

Making Variety rice thali is simple and easy compared to other South Indian lunch menus like Sambar, Rasam and other complete South Indian Lunch Thali. Here I made,

1. Sakkarai Pongal / Sweet Pongal
2. Lemon Rice
3. Coconut Rice/Thengai Sadham
4. Tamarind Rice/Puli Sadham
5. Curd Rice/Thayir Sadham
6. Pasiparuppu Payasam
7. Medhu Vada
8. Paruppu Vadai/Masal Vada
9. Appalam

• First Soak Urad Dal and Channa Dal for Vadas separately. 
• Then I prepare Sweet Pongal/Sakkarai Pongal in Pressure Cooker following this method.
• After that Cook rice(1.5 cup sona masoori) and spread the rice in a wide platter and allowed to cool.
• Then  start chopping green chillies, ginger, curry leaves, cilantro  for lemon rice, curd rice and coconut rice and also for both vadas.
• Then squeeze lemon juice and shred coconut and keep aside.
• Now start tempering for lemon rice in a kadai, once done mix it with rice and keep aside.
• Then prepare tadka for curd rice in a kadai add it to the curd and then to the same kadai start preparing coconut rice(follow the link for detailed recipe).
• I made this easy and instant Tamarind Rice, this time i skipped turmeric powder and garlic other than that followed the same recipe(follow the link for detailed recipe).
• After that started preparing for Pasiparuppu payasam.
• Lastly ground the dal in mixer and once done heat oil in akadai for deep frying.
• Mean while prepare the vada batter and fry them one by one.
• After frying vadas, fry Appalam.

It will hardly take 1.30-2 hours to cook everything single handedly. I used 100 gm of urad and channa dal for vada, with it you can make around 10-12 medium sized vadas. Hope the above tips and method will help you to plan your lunch menu.