Pachi Pulusu Recipe: An Easy Cold Indian Soup

Soups are a popular starter in Indian cuisine. Families also serve them as accompaniments, for lunch, or as a mid-course in a multi-course meal. The cuisine has multiple soup varieties from different regions that use seasonal vegetables or widely available ingredients. One popular Indian soup is pachi pulusu.

Pachi pulusu is a light vegetable soup flavoured with tamarind that people traditionally serve cold. Therefore, people most commonly eat this Indian soup in the summer. Due to the consistency and temperature of the soup, it is a fantastic appetizer if a heavier meal follows.

However, you can also make it a heartier dish if you want to eat it for lunch or as a main meal. Simply increase the quantity of vegetables and serve it with some bread. I recommend eating the soup with flatbread or chapatis.

The soup has many variations, and some families have unique recipes they pass down the generations. Traditionally, the main ingredients for pachi pulusu are tamarind juice, onions, dried chillies, curry leaves, cumin seeds, and an unrefined sugar product called jaggery.

In the UK, tamarind fruits are difficult to buy. If you can get hold of tamarind, the video below by SasiRekhas Kitchen explains how to extract tamarind juice to make the soup. However, many people outside of Asia use tamarind paste, which I use to make the pachi pulusu recipe.

Likewise, jaggery is not widely available outside Asia unless you live near a store specializing in Asian products. I use demerara sugar as an alternative. Americas Restaurant says you can also use rapadura sugar, molasses, muscovado sugar, or dark brown sugar.

As there are few ingredients and barely any cooking, it is a budget-friendly and easy soup recipe. Here is an easy pachi pulusu recipe for you to try.

Useful Information

Preparation time:	10 minutes (+ preparation of tamarind if using tamarind fruit rather than paste)
Cooking time:	5 minutes
Servings:	6
Vegetarian:	Yes
Vegan:	Yes
Dairy-free:	Yes
Gluten-free:	Yes

Ingredients for the Pachi Pulusu Recipe

• 2 tablespoons tamarind paste
• 1.5 cups of water (approximate)
• 1 small red onion, finely chopped
• 1 dried red chilli, finely chopped
• 2 fresh green chillies, finely chopped
• 1 tsp each of olive oil and sesame oil
• ½ tsp each of mustard seeds and cumin seeds
• 2 tbsp fresh coriander leaves
• 6-8 curry leaves
• 1 tsp demerara sugar
• Salt to taste

How to Make Pachi Pulusu

1. Put the finely chopped onions into a bowl with the fresh coriander, chopped green chillies and curry leaves.
2. Use your hands to squeeze the ingredients and mix them together to release the flavours.
3. If you are using fresh tamarind pulp, add that in now. Otherwise, add the tamarind paste along with the water and stir the ingredients together.
4. Heat the oil in a pan over medium heat, ready to temper the spices.
5. Add the mustard seeds, cumin seeds, and chopped dried red chilli to the pan.
6. Cook until the mustard seeds start to make a popping noise.
7. Pour the oil and tempered spices and oil into the tamarind mixture.
8. Add the salt and sugar or jaggery and stir the ingredients together.
9. Serve the pachi pulusu with steamed white rice.

Additional Tips

• Resting the pachi pulusu for 30 minutes before serving is best, as doing so will allow the flavours to develop.
• Add some more chilli if you want to make the pachi pulusu hotter.
• Try adding some chopped roasted garlic to the soup.