What can be better in a bittercold winter than a bowl of hot, savory rasam! I like rasam and I also enjoy experimenting. The result is today’s recipe. To a traditional toor dal based rasam, I have added lemongrass. The bright, lemony herbal flavor of lemongrass could really cheer up casual rasam, I thought, and it did. Recipe is easy. Simmer the cooked dal with lemongrass and other regular rasam additions. No tomatoes, but ghee tadka is incorporated at the end to harmonize everything. Serve the rasam hot in a bowl and sip. Heaven must taste like this.

Lemongrass Rasam
(serves 4)

Ingredients:
2 fistfuls of toor dal and 2 cups of water
1 shallot, finely chopped lengthwise
1 tablespoon, finely sliced lemongrass
1 tablespoon each, tamarind pulp and jaggery
1 teaspoon each, salt and rasam powder
1/2 teaspoon, chilli powder
1/4 teaspoon, turmeric
few sprigs of fresh cilantro, finely chopped

For Ghee Tadka:
1 tablespoon, ghee
1 small sprig of fresh curry leaves
pinch each, cumin, mustard seeds and asafetida

Method:

Take toor dal and water in a pressure cooker. Cover and cook until the dal is tender. Gently mash the dal to smooth.

To the cooked dal, add shallot, lemongrass, tamarind pulp and jaggery. Also stir in salt, rasam powder, chilli powder and turmeric. Add a cup of water. Partially cover and simmer for additional 10 minutes until you see froth coming up on top of the vessel. Switch off the heat and garnish with cilantro leaves.

Meanwhile, heat the ghee in a small skillet. Add curry leaves, cumin, mustard seeds and asafetida in that order. Saute, stirring constantly. When mustard seeds start to pop out of skillet, pour this sizzling tadka over lemongrass rasam. Mix well and serve immediately. Sip the rasam or eat mixed with rice. Comforting and nourishing, the rasam experience will warm the wintered soul.

Warm Bowl of Lemongrass Rasam ~ for Meal today

© Recipe and Photos Copyright 2009 Indira Singari.

13 Comments

Beatific Butterfly from Backyard
(Of all the transplanted, showy flowers in the backyard, the butterflies are drawn to the wild ones which are known in this part of the world as weeds. Butterflies are precious! So now weeds have become part of the landscape.)

Today is Vara Lakshmi Vratham, an auspicious day on which Goddess Lakshmi Devi is celebrated with fasting, Pooja and neivedyam. It’s customary to share the Lakshmi Devi amma blessings with family and friends, and I am glad to share this day with you Net friends.

Neivedyam for the Pooja:

Semiya-Saggubiyyam Payasam
Atrasalu
Alasanda Vada
Chintapandu Pulihora (Tamarind Rice)
Sona Masuri Annam
Gongura Pappu
Chayote Kura
Brinjal-Jaggery Pacchadi
Coriander Rasam
Dadhojanam
Biyyam and saggubiyyam vadiyaalu

My Meal Menu:

Fasting in the morning.

Has ended the day with an early meal -small helping of each item from the Pooja neivedyam.

Workout:
Cooking. Pooja and meditation

In retrospect:
Great day! Calming cooking, peaceful Pooja in the morning hours.
Met good friends and had pleasant time in the evening.

Gongura From Backyard

Gongura Pappu from Amma

The gongura seeds I had planted in March are now thriving healthy plants. The generous gongura didn’t mind when I plucked some mature leaves for the Pooja neivedyam menu today. There are several ways to prepare gongura pappu, and the following recipe is from my amma. I thought it’s a great way to pay homage to her on this auspicious day through this favorite vantakam.

Ingredients and Preparation:

Preparation happens in two steps.

Step 1:

Toor dal: 3/4 cup
Fresh gongura leaves - 6 cups, tightly packed
Indian or Thai variety green chilli - 8, chopped to tiny pieces
Red onion or shallots - chopped to chunks, 1 cup
Turmeric - 1/4 teaspoon

Take the above ingredients in a pressure cooker. Add two cups of water.
In a mortar, add a garlic clove and 2 teaspoons of coriander seeds. Pound to coarse paste. Add this paste to the ingredients in pressure cooker. Mix. Close the lid and cook until everything has become soft, particularly the toor dal.

Step 2:

Salt - 1/2 teaspoon or to taste
Peanut oil or ghee - 1 tablespoon
From masala dabba: Following ingredients for inguva(asafetida) Tadka:
a sprig of curry leaves
4 pieces of one-inch, majjiga mirapa(dahi mirchi)
1/4 teaspoon of urad dal
a pinch each - cumin, mustard seeds and hing (asafetida)

Add salt to the cooked dal in pressure cooker. With a pappu gutti (wooden whisk), mash the cooked ingredients to fairly coarse paste like. Remove the dal to a bowl or vessel.

In a small pan, heat the peanut oil or ghee. Add the tadka ingredients in this order, from big to small: curry leaves, dahi mirchi pieces, urad dal, cumin, and mustard seeds. Continuously stirring, toast the ingredients to golden. When mustard seeds make pop sounds, sprinkle the hing. Stir for couple of seconds. Immediately add this fragrant tadka to the cooked dal. Mix well and cover with a lid so that the flavors and aroma of hing tadka are thoroughly absorbed by the pappu (dal).

Serve the gongura pappu with rice or roti. The blissful combination is the old classic: gongura pappu and freshly cooked, hot Sona Masuri rice with some ghee and vadiyaalu on the side. Heaven!

Gongura Pappu in Vadiyam Vadi on Muruku Peetam ~ For Meal Today

© Recipe and Photos Copyright 2009 Indira Singari.

74 Comments

I am glad to see a new word “soopa” reintroduced into our cookery lexicon by Pratibha and Jigyasa through Sukham Ayu cookbook. Like the authors I found it interesting that ayurvedic texts refer to watery broth/soup like preparation as soopa. Research is done rarely in centuries old Indic cookery. We are more used to label our food items in occidental and arabic terms, and blindly repeat the colonial self-aggrandizing stories of our food roots. So, for a change, it is greatly refreshing and empowering to know about soopa. I think this Sanskrit word alone is worth the book price. Original research equals to precious gold, don’t you agree? Welcome back Soopa. Goodbye Soup.

Here is a soopa I made from Sukham Ayu. The base is toor dal and the flavor is from ginger and lemon. It’s a familiar, charming soopa, simple yet sublime. Perfect to usher in “I am not cold but not yet warm” spring season.

Ginger Lemon Soopa
Recipe adapted from Sukham Ayu, page-37
(makes about four cups of soopa)

Toor dal: Pressure-cook half cup of toor dal in two cups of water to soft. With a wood masher or whisk, churn the dal to soft, smooth consistency.

Ginger: Take a 1×1 inch piece of ginger. Peel the skin and grate. Add the grated ginger to mashed toor dal. Also half teaspoon each- red chilli powder and salt, and quarter teaspoon of turmeric. Add half cup of water and simmer for about 10 minutes on medium heat.

Tadka: While the soopa is simmering, do the tadka. In a small pan, heat a tablespoon of ghee. Add and toast 10 curry leaves, cumin, and mustard seeds, in that order. When seeds start to pop, sprinkle a pinch of asafetida. Sauté for couple of seconds and pour this tadka into the simmering soopa. Mix and turn off the heat.

Lemon: Flavor the soopa with about 2 tablespoons of lemon juice. Serve hot. Soothing and a strength saver, ginger-lemon soopa is a great warm-up food and recommended during convalescence.

© Recipe and Photos Copyright 2009 Indira Singari

22 Comments