Seeraa Rasam

Today is my first day of Valli's Blogging Marathon and i choose 7 days of Rasam or Saathamudhu! Its one of the most comforting dish and is pretty simple to make :)..Konjum saadham (rice), saathamudu & karamedu and you can see me happy for the rest of the day.. i guess food does that to me!!
This week has been lousy with respect to food!! We went to a Thai restaurant and Pad Thai was soggy & sad..the next day we tried a new indian restaurant..food was not great either..i hate it when dine-outs are a disaster and when we got back, i was more than happy to fix us with this simple rasam!
Rajiamma, my granny did the best version of this.. i guess some people have the kai man am (the skill of making the dish perfectly)! Something light, filling and perfect when you are sick too.. the light flavors just soothe you..so off to Seera ( nothing but Jeera) Saathamudu..

Ingredients
1. Tamarind paste - 1 tsp or small gooseberry size
2. Water - 4 cups +1/2 cup (for dal)
3. Cooked Toor dal/ Paruppu -2tbsp
3. Tomato - 1(chopped)
4. Hing - a pinch
5. Curry Leaves - a sprig or more
6. Turmeric powder - a pinch
7. Salt - to taste
8. Cilantro (finely choped) - 1-2 sprigs


To Roast & Dry Grind
1. Channa dal - 1tbsp
2. Toor dal - 1 tbsp
3. Red Chillies - 2
4. Jeera/ Cumin - 1tbsp
5. Ghee - 1tsp


To Temper
1. Mustard seeds - 1tsp
2. Ghee - 1tsp




Preparation Time!!
1a. Cook the lentil in a pressure cooker for upto 4 whistles. Alternatively, if you are cooking dal or sambhar, you could use the toor dal water along with 1-2tbsp of cooked toor dal!
1b. In a vessel, take the tamarind paste or juice, add the water, turmeric,tomato, hing, salt and curry leaves and boil
2. As this getting boiled, take a pan, add ghee and add the ingredients mentioned in 'To Roast & Dry grind' table, except jeera and sauté till light brown
3. Remove, cool and blend to a semi-coarse powder. Once done, add jeera and use the whip/pulse action in the mixer( Idea is not to powder jeera completely..just break a little). Keep aside
4. Once the raw smell of tamarind goes and tomato is cooked, add the ground powder and add the toor dal water(1/2cup) with 1-2 tbsp of mashed toor dal. Reduce flame to medium
5. Take 1-2 minutes, a light froth is formed. This is the time to remove the rasam
6. Temper with mustard seeds and then garish with cilantro


Serve hot with rice & ghee and enjoy with some curry :)..


Pointers
1. Dont roast the jeera/ cumin with other ingredients.. Roasting will give the rasam a medicinal taste like kashayam
2. You could use mortar & pestle, to pound jeera.. its not supposed to be finely ground!
3. Use ghee to roast ingredients & for tempering.. This is the key to enhance flavors..No oil for rasam please
4. Don't over-boil this rasam..After the addition of ground powder & dal, let it simmer for just a minute or so..remove as soon as the light froth is formed


Serving : 2 people
Duration : 20-25 minutes


Go ahead and see whats cooking in my fellow marathoners kitchen..Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM#13

Sending this to Gayatri's  'Walk through Memory Lane'