Tamarind pulao
Ingredients:
1 cup fine long grain rice
1/4 cup bengal gram
30 gms or 1 medium lemon size tamarind
4 twigs of curry leaves
4 tbsp oil
2 tbsp black gram
1/2 tsp mustard
2 red chillies, broken into half
2 green chillies, slit
1/4 tsp turmeric powder
4 tbsp sesame seeds, roasted & powdered
Salt to taste
Optional:
1 tbsp cashews/peanuts
Small piece of ginger, cut into fine pieces
A pinch of asafotida

Method:
1. Wash rice and Bengal gram together and cook adding enough water. Make sure not to overcook.
2. Soak tamarind in enough water and squeeze out half a cup pulp. Boil the tamarind juice till it becomes semi-thick.
3. Pour the cooked rice into a big bowl, add turmeric powder, 2 tbsp oil, salt, tamarind pulp and two twigs of curry leaves to the piping hot rice.
4. Heat medium size pan and add oil. When oil gets heated add black gram, mustard seeds, cashew nuts and peanuts. When they are golden, add red chilies, ginger, curry leaves, green chilies and asafoetida. Remove from flame and add it to the rice.
5. Mix thoroughly adding sesame powder and leave it covered for an hour to allow the rice to absorb the ingredients.

Variations:
1. Replace tamarind with either lemon or mango. Rest of the ingredients and methods are same.
2. If you are using lemon take out the seeds from the juice and add salt to it.
3. Raw (green) mango can also be used in place of tamarind / lemon juice. Peel the skin and grate the raw mango. Sesame seeds can be optional in either of the two cases. Tamarind and chilies can be varied to taste.
4. Grated coconut can be added, but Pulihora doesn't last long, which otherwise is tastier the next day.