Garlic
Garlic is a traditional vegetable. In Tamil language, we call it as "Poondu". Garlic has many health benefits. Particularly it is said to help in digestion. There are some dish where we use Garlic as main ingredient for example: Poondu Kuzhambu, Poondu chutney.
Garlic peeled:
Garlic pieces are used as such in Kuzhambu as one of the ingredient or main ingredient to make Poondu Kuzhambu. Crushed Garlic is used for almost all dishes.
We have a device to crush garlic. If you dont have, you can crush it with a knife too.
Put peeled garlic
and crush
In our Non-veg dishes, Garlic plays a most important part. Usually Garlic is mixed with Ginger and made a paste called Ginger-Garlic Paste, which is used to make non-veg meat dishes.
Sometimes we use garlic and onion combination. For example, the below style crushing with onion is done to add masala for fish fry.
Put peeled garlic and chopped onions
and crush
Photo representing the amount of tomato, onions and garlic needed for making Veg Kuzhambu or Fish Kuzhambu:
Popular dish where Garlic is used:
As a main vegetable ingredient in Kuzhambu.
As a part of flavour adding ingredient to many veg and non-veg dishes.
Spelling variations in Tamil name for Garlic:
Poondu, Puundu