Scope
South Indian meals, particularly lunch, is never complete without some tangy, sour, digestives such as the moru (curd) rice and another soupy dish called rasam. Rasam means “juice”. Rasam commonly refers to soup prepared with sweet-sour stock made from either kokum or tamarind, along with tomato and lentil, added spices and garnish. The Karnataka and Andhra varieties are called saaru in Kannada and chaaru in Telugu, respectively. The spices used include chili pepper, black pepper, cumin etc.
It is eaten with rice or separately as a spicy soup and can be consumed hot or cold. Rasam has a distinct taste in comparison to the sambar due to its own seasoning ingredients. Given its usage as a regular dish in daily meals, Rasam Powder is prepared and stored in airtight containers beforehand.
Rasam is prepared mainly with kokum, kadampuli/kachampuli (malabar tamarind) or tamarind stock depending on the region, along with tomato stock. Lentils are optional but are used in several rasams recipes. Other ingredients used are jaggery, garlic, cumin, black pepper, chilli powder, turmeric, curry leaves, coriander as flavoring ingredients and garnish.
The below series covers pretty much the whole gamut of rasams one can savour in South Indian households.
Ingredient and Process of Cooking
Pure Water – 2 padi
Butter Beans – ¼ padi
Turmeric Powder – veesam 1/16 palam
Tamarind – 1½ palam
Salt – 1¾ palam
Rasam Powder – 1½ palam
Curry Leaves – 1 palam
Fresh Coriander Leaves – ¼ palam
Ghee – 1 palam
Mustard Seeds – palam
Black Gram – ¼ palam
Cumin Seeds – palam
Fenugreek Seeds – veesam 1/16 palam
Asafoetida – 2 ku.a
1. Boil pure water in a vessel that has the capacity to hold 2½ padi water. Add butter beans, turmeric powder to the boiling water one by one.
2. Close it with a vessel filled with water. Dissolve tamarind in water in a lead coated vessel and remove the seeds from it. Add salt to the tamarind juice.
3. If the butter beans are cooked well, add the tamarind juice and the rasam powder to it. Add curry leaves.
4. Boil ghee and add mustard seeds, black gram, cumin seeds, fenugreek seeds and follow the procedure in recipe no 22 (seasoning recipe) for seasoning. Dissolve asafoetida in water and add it to the rasam and remove from the fire.
References
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