Most Karnataka cooking uses oil as a medium: it carries heat into a palya or a dosa and then gets out of the way. The rice baths are the exception. In puliyogare, chitranna and vangi bath the oil is an ingredient you can taste on the tongue, and the amount of it is part of the recipe rather than an accident. That changes which oil is the right one.
This is the practical version: which oil each of the Old Mysuru rice baths actually wants, roughly how much, and why a refined oil makes a flat gojju.
Why the rice baths are an oil question at all
A gojju is oil, tamarind, jaggery and spice cooked down together until it thickens. The oil is not there to fry anything. It is there to carry the spice, to coat every grain of rice so the mixture spreads evenly, and to keep the gojju from spoiling on the counter for a day or two. All three of those jobs depend on the oil having a flavour and a body of its own.
Refined oil has been bleached and deodorised specifically to remove flavour. Put it in a gojju and you get the tamarind and the chilli with nothing underneath them. People describe the result as thin, or as tasting of the pan. That is the missing oil.
Puliyogare: sesame, and more of it than you expect
Ellenne is the traditional gojju oil across Old Mysuru and most of the Kannada-speaking south, and it is still the right answer. Cold pressed sesame oil is dark and strongly aromatic, and in a gojju that aroma is not a background note — it is the dish.
Two honest points. The first is quantity: puliyogare gojju is oil-heavy by design. If a recipe looks like it is asking for an alarming amount of oil, the recipe is probably correct and you are comparing it to a palya. The oil is what lets the gojju keep, and what stops the rice clumping. The second is cost. Sesame is one of our dearer oils — 500 ml is ₹310 and a litre ₹520 — so a household that makes puliyogare often tends to buy the litre rather than the small bottle. We go into where ellenne earns that price, and where it does not, in where cold pressed sesame oil actually belongs.
If you want the sesame flavour without the full cost, some families cut it: groundnut for the bulk of the gojju, a spoon of ellenne stirred in at the end for the aroma. It is a compromise, and it works better than you would think.
Chitranna: groundnut, and a lighter hand
Chitranna is a different kind of dish. There is no cooked-down gojju — it is a tempering of mustard, urad, chana, curry leaves, green chilli and groundnuts, poured over rice with lemon and turmeric. The oil's job is to carry the tempering and to coat the rice, and it should not fight the lemon.
Cold pressed groundnut oil is the sensible default: mild, faintly nutty, and it agrees with the peanuts already in the dish. Sesame will work, but it tends to dominate the lemon. Coconut oil belongs in chitranna along the coast and almost nowhere else — that is a regional preference rather than a mistake either way.
Use less than you would for puliyogare. Chitranna is not supposed to be glossy.
Vangi bath and the bath powders
Vangi bath needs enough oil to actually cook the brinjal down before the bath powder goes in. Under-oil it and the brinjal steams rather than softens, and the powder ends up raw and dusty against the rice. Groundnut is the usual choice because it takes the sustained medium heat without trouble; sesame makes a heavier, more aromatic version that some households prefer.
The same logic runs through the other bath powders — kaara bath, methi bath, the regional variations. The powder is dry and roasted, so it needs fat to bloom in. That is the oil's main job here.
Bisi bele bath: where we have nothing to sell you
Bisi bele bath is traditionally finished with ghee, and the tempering is often ghee too. We do not make ghee and we are not going to pretend oil is the same thing. If you are making it with oil, groundnut for the tempering is the closest you will get, but a spoon of ghee at the end is what most people are tasting when they remember it well made.
What this means for the bottle you buy
Oil-forward dishes get through oil quickly, which matters more than it sounds. Unrefined oil keeps three to six months once opened, kept capped in a cool dark cupboard away from the stove — so a household making puliyogare and vangi bath regularly can comfortably take a 5 L of groundnut, while the same household is usually better off buying sesame a litre at a time and finishing it fresh. Buying a 15 L tin of a flavour oil you use by the spoon is how good oil goes stale.
If you are working out which bottles belong in a kitchen that cooks this way, the guide to oil for the tawa covers the dosa-and-rotti half of the same question, and the full range of cold pressed oils lists every size. For Mysuru households specifically, our Mysuru page has the local delivery detail, and there is a Mandya page for the district next door.
Frequently asked questions
Which oil is traditional for puliyogare gojju?
Sesame oil — ellenne — across Old Mysuru and most of southern Karnataka. The aroma is part of the dish rather than a side effect of the cooking.
Can I make puliyogare with groundnut oil instead?
Yes, and plenty of households do, usually because sesame is dearer. The gojju will be milder. A spoon of sesame stirred in at the end gets most of the aroma back.
Why does my gojju taste flat?
Usually either too little oil or a refined oil. Refined oil is deodorised precisely to have no flavour, so there is nothing underneath the tamarind and chilli.
How much oil does puliyogare gojju actually need?
More than a palya, by some distance — that is the dish, not an error in the recipe. The oil is what coats the rice evenly and lets the gojju keep for a day or two.
Which oil for chitranna?
Groundnut for most of Karnataka, because it stays out of the way of the lemon. Coconut oil is the coastal version.