Piping hot traditional rasam

Rasam is a thin tamarind, tomato, garlic based soup with the addition of pepper, chilli, jeera, coriander seed and toor dal. Its kind of thin Sambar. Its second course in any traditional meal preceded by Sambar/ Kuzhambu and followed by curd rice. Its prepared on a daily basis in every South Indian home. When people are down with cold or fever they drink rasam as the huge amount of pepper in rasam is said to have many healing properties. The other ingredients like tamaraind and garlic has also many nutritional value and health benefits. 

It’s a South Indian dish and I believe people in North India rarely know about rasam. Its called rasam in TamilNadu, Saaru in Karnataka and Chaaru in Andhra. In Sourashtra we call it Pilchar.

Thanks to Idli Dosa, now North Indians have known about Sambar and they are in love with it. Having been in Mumbai for quite a while, I know how people there crave for sambar. Some of my room mates have even asked for a sambar recipe and when I told them how to make it, they were like ‘Ahh, its so simple, we never thought it was so!’. Road side stalls of Idli Dosa Vada Sambar are becoming very popular there…a flourishing business indeed!

And coming to the rasam preparation, it’s a breeze if you have the rasam powder handy or atleast know what ingredients go into the making of the rasam powder. Even though we are miles apart from our hometown, we very much stick to having traditional meals at home. God! We cannot live without Kuzhambu podi, Sambar podi and Rasam podi which mom makes in bulk. We make it a point to get it from home when we travel there or atleast when someone from there travels to our place here. Now-a-days I get to know from mom the ingredients she uses to make it and I make small batches of those powders occasionally.

So, the ingredients to make rasam powder include pepper, jeera, coriander seed, red chilli, hing, toor dal and curry leaf.

Ingredients to make rasam

1 ts rasam powder

½ cup toor dal

1 big tomato

4-5 garlic pods

1 ts tamarind extract

For tempering

½ ts mustard seed, 2 red chilli, Few sprigs of curry leaves

Preparation

Soak toor dal in water for an hour and pressure cook until it beomes soft and mushy.

In a container add rasam powder, cooked toor dal, hand crushed tomato, crushed garlic pods, enough salt, tamarind extract and enough water. Place it on stove top and leave it undisturbed. In few minutes the mixture will boil up and begin to froth at the top. That’s the stage you have to switch off the stove.

In a small pan add oil. Once hot add mustard seed, red chilli and the whole sprig of curry leaf. That’s the way my grandmom used to make. Adding the whole sprig of curry leaf gives a subtle yet powerful aroma to the rasam.

Add the seasoning to the boiled rasam and mix well.

Voila! Your hot piping rasam is ready.

We love to have it with hot steamed rice, any curry and few papad. Some Sourashtrians relish their rasam with sukkad (dry lamb fry) or koddi (dry fish fry).