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 – 1 ¾ padi

Pigeonpea – ¼ padi

Ghee -1½ palam

Pepper – ½ palam

Red Chillies – ¼ palam

Cumin Seed – palam

Coriander Seed – ¼ palam

Turmeric Powder – veesam 1/16 palam

Salt – ¾ palam

Curry Leaves – 1 palam

Coriander Leaves - palam

Ghee -½ palam

Mustard Seed – palam

Cumin Seed – palam

Lemon – 2

1. Boil water in a 3 padi water holding capacity lead coated vessel. Heat ghee and add the pigeon pea and fry until golden brown.

2. Put this in a grinder and break the lentil into small pieces. Tie this broken lentils in a thin white cloth and dip this cloth into the boiling water.

3. When the lentil is cooked well, that is when the boiling water becomes yellow in color, remove the white cloth and grind the masala by sprinkling some lentil water in it.

4. Dissolve this masala in little water and strain it. Then add this to the boiling water and boil the water again. Add salt. Fry curry leaves in fire and add this along with the cleaned coriander leaves.

5. Refer to recipe no 22 for seasoning method and use ghee, mustard and cumin seeds.

6. Squeeze the juice of 2 lemons into the rasam.

References

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