Mysore Rasam

According to me (and most of others who have tasted this rasam), mysore rasam is rich, exotic & aromatic. You taste it once, and get hooked on to this for the rest of your life!

Back at home, I am a big foodie of all. If at all there is someone to demand my mom of her recipes, that would be me! I am addicted to this rasam so much so that I have asked my mom to make it for me time & time again!

Basic Info
Complexity - Medium
Prep time - 25 mins
Cook time - 15 mins
Serves - 3-4

Ingredients
Tamarind - size of a large gooseberry
Tomatoes - 3 nos (medium sized, ripe)
Cooked & mashed Toor dal - 2-3 tbsp
Black Peppercorns - 3/4 tsp
Red chillies - 1 no
Coconut pieces - 12 small pieces (approx less than 1/4 cup of grated coconut)
Hing - 1 small piece
Oil - 2 tsp
Curry leaves - 1-2 sprigs
Rasam powder - 1 tsp
Salt - to taste

Method

Soak tamarind in hot water and extract about 2 cups of tamarind water. Keep it aside.

Add 1 cup of water to mashed toor dal, mix well and set aside.

Heat a tsp of oil, and fry hing, red chillies & black peppercorns until crisp & aromatic. Let it cool and grind along with coconut into a thick & smooth paste. Add as little water as required.

Boil tamarind water & chopped tomatoes along with salt & rasam powder for about 7-8 mins until the raw smell of tamarind goes off. To this, add the ground paste and let it come to a boil. Finally, add toor dal water and let it froth.

Remove from heat. Heat a tsp of oil, splutter mustard seeds and add it to the rasam. Garnish with curry leaves and hot & tasty rasam is ready to be served.

Poondu (Garlic) Rasam

Another simple, healthy & flavorful rasam recipe from the traditional series.

Garlic rasam mixed with hot rice and a dab of ghee is not only comforting, but also has a lot of medicinal qualities especially for the sick & bed-ridden. With garlic & cumin & pepper, you can't find a better home remedy for cold & sore-throat!

But, wait! You don't have to be sick to enjoy this aromatic & flavorful rasam. Hot & spicy garlic rasam makes a perfectly warming soup on any cold rainy day!

Basic Info
Complexity - Simple
Prep time - 5 mins
Cook time - 20 mins
Serves - 3-4

Ingredients
Tomatoes - 3 Medium (ripe, sour)
Cooked Toor dal - 2 tsp (pressure cooked & mashed)
Tamarind - Small marble sized
Water - 2 cups + 1 cup
Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp
Hing - 2 pinches
Salt - to taste

To Crush Coarsely
Cumin seeds - 1 tbsp + 1 tsp
Pepper corns - 2 tsp
Dry red chilli - 1 no
Garlic - 7-8 cloves (leave the skin on)

To Season
Ghee - 1 tsp
Mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp
Curry leaves - 1 sprig
Cilantro - few stalks

Method

Mix 2 tsp of cooked toor dal with a cup of water and keep it ready until use.

Heat a cup of water and soak tamarind in it for 10 mins. Extract about 2 cups of tamarind water from it. Filter the water & discard the pulp.

Using your hands, squish & mash the tomatoes into tamarind water. Add turmeric water, salt, hing and mix well.

In the meanwhile, take a mixer, add cumin seeds & pepper corns and give it a pulse. Next, add dry red chilli and give it a second pulse and finally, add garlic cloves and give it the third & last pulse. The idea is to coarsely grind the ingredients. Alternatively, you can use mortar & pestle and crush them into a coarse mixture.

Add this crushed mixture to the tamarind water. 

Bring it to a rolling boil on medium heat (takes about 10-12 mins). Then, add dal water, adjust salt and let it froth (takes about 2-3 mins).

Remove from heat & cover it completely for atleast 15 mins for all the flavors to be locked inside.

Heat a tsp of ghee, splutter mustard seeds and add it to the rasam. Garnish with curry leaves & cilantro and hot rasam is ready to be served.

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 :)

Pepper rasam

Hot, peppery & aromatic - a lighter, south-Indian version of tomato soup! Pepper rasam uses fresh spices like cumin seeds & pepper and is a perfect comforting on cold weather & rainy days. When someone in our home is slightly under the weather, this is the most sought-after recipe - absolutely homey & heart-warming!!

You might see that this rasam also uses the same ingredients as that of Jeera rasam. But, the variation part is that the spices are ground into dry powder and not as a paste like how we do for Jeera rasam.

Basic Info

Complexity - Simple

Prep time - 5 mins

Cook time - 15 mins

Serves - about 2 cups

Ingredients

Chopped medium sized RIPE tomatoes - 3-4 nos
Tamarind - size of a gooseberry
Jeera (Cumin seeds) - 1/4 tablespoon
Pepper corn - 1/2 tablespoon
Raw Toor dal - 1/4 tablespoon
Red chillies (small) - 1-2 nos (optional)
Curry leaves - Few
Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp
Mustard seeds - Few - spluttered in little oil
Salt - to taste
Oil - 1/2 tsp (to temper mustard seeds)

Method

Add hot water to tamarind & extract about 1.5 cups of tamarind juice from it.

Take tamarind juice in a pan/vessel and add tomatoes, turmeric powder, salt to it. Let it boil until the raw smell of tamarind is gone and the tomatoes are completely cooked. Grind cumin seeds, pepper corn, toor dal, red chillies into a fine powder.

Add this powder to the boiling rasam and about 1/2 cup of water. Let the rasam froth & remove from heat. Add spluttered mustard seeds & curry leaves. Serve hot with rice.

Notes:

Grind the spices just before you need the paste to be added to rasam. This way flavor of all the spices will be fresh & bold.

Jeera rasam

Jeera (Cumin) rasam - As its name indicates, this rasam is made with spices like jeera/pepper/red chillies etc. My mom usually prepares this rasam when someone at home has cold / not well. This rasam, when drank hot tastes like heaven especially in cold weather. If you don't have rasam powder in stock, then this rasam comes handy as it is made from fresh spices.

Tip:
Grind the spices just before you need the paste to be added to rasam. This way flavor of all the spices will be fresh & bold.

Ingredients
Finely chopped medium size tomatoes - 2 nos
Tamarind juice - size of gooseberry - Add hot water & extract about 1.5 cups of juice from it.
Jeera - 1 tablespoon
Pepper corn - 1/2 tablespoon
Raw Toor dal - 1/2 tablespoon (Note that this is raw toor dal and not cooked)
Red chillies (small) - 1-2 nos
Curry leaves - Few
Mustard seeds - Few - spluttered in little oil
Salt - to taste

Method
Pour tamarind juice in a pan/vessel and add tomatoes & salt to it. Allow it to boil until the raw smell of tamarind is gone and the tomatoes are cooked. Grind jeera, pepper corn, toor dal, red chillies, curry leaves and make it a fine paste. Take care to add water little by little while grinding else the paste might not grind very smooth. Add this paste to the boiling rasam, and wait until the rasam froths. Remove from heat and add spluttered mustard seeds. Serve hot with rice.

More rasam recipes to come :)

Paruppu Rasam

In Sanskrit language, 'Rasa' means Juice. In Tamil, rasam is commonly referred to the one prepared with Tamarind/Tomato juice with added spices. Rasam has a distinct taste in comparison to the sambar due to its own seasoning ingredients and is usually watery in consistency and eaten with rice. Rasam is also served as soup in restaurants these days.

Rasam is the one of the easiest recipes to cook, yet the toughest. All the flavors in rasam should be equally balanced else rasam can go sour or taste just like hot water.

Ingredients

Finely chopped medium sized tomatoes - 2 nos

Tamarind juice - size of a large gooseberry - Add hot water & extract about 1.5 cups of juice from it

Cooked & mashed Toor dal - 1/8 cup

Rasam powder - 2-3 tsp (depending on spice level)

Hing - 1/2 tsp

Salt - to taste

Cilantro - 5-6 stalks

Mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp spluttered in oil

Method

Pour tamarind juice into a small saucepan. Add tomatoes, rasam powder, hing, salt and bring it to a boil. 

Let the rasam boil until the raw smell of tamarind & rasam powder is gone. Mix mashed toor dal with 3/4 cup of water, add to the rasam and remove from heat as soon as it froths. Remove from heat, add cilantro & spluttered mustard seeds and keep covered until ready to be served.

Serve hot with rice. More rasam recipes to come.