Lemon rasam

Well, now its time for lemon rasam. Did you quickly go back to my homepage to check how many rasam recipes I have posted so far? Well, as I had written in one of my earlier posts, rasam is one of the main & compulsory items in our everyday menu. So, wouldn't it be boring if we make the same type of rasam everyday? Do you see my point? Okay, lets move on..

My mom had many great rasam recipes up her sleeve and its my time now to learn & master all of them. Infact, my mom-in-law enjoys all of the rasam varieties that I make and she is a great fan of my rasam profile. (I have bragging rights, don't I ?!?!?!)

Lemon rasam has this refreshingly yellow color & taste that would linger in your mind & mouth. One thing that I like about this rasam is that it doesn't use tamarind which is a very welcoming change for me. If you don't have tamarind/rasam powder at home, then this is the rasam that you should try.

Ingredients
Medium size ripe tomatoes - 2 nos (finely chopped)
Green Chillies - 6-8 nos (cut into half)
Turmeric powder - 2-3 pinches (This gives the color for rasam)
Coriander leaves - few
Salt - to taste
Cooked & mashed toor dal (with a pinch of turmeric powder) - 1/2 cup
Lemon - 1 no (Extract only the juice. Depending on how much sour you want your rasam to be, you could add half or one more lemon)
Oil & Mustard seeds for tempering

Method

Take a medium-sized sauce-pan, add 2 cups of water, chopped tomatoes, chillies, turmeric powder and salt and let it cook for 10 mins. After the tomatoes are fully cooked, add mashed toor dal and remove from heat as soon as the rasam froths.

Splutter mustard seeds in little oil and add it to the rasam. Garnish it with coriander leaves. Remove rasam pan off the stove and add lemon juice to it.

Tips:

- Add lemon juice at the last after removing rasam off the stove. otherwise, rasam will taste bitter.

- You should also try narthangai (citron fruit) rasam. Substitue citron instead of lemon, rest of the recipe remains the same.

More rasam recipes to follow :)