Rasam – is a South Indian traditional soup made with tamarind, tomatoes, spices and aromatic herbs. Today lets prepare it in a special way yet with simple steps.
Ingredients
The ingredients mentioned below are for preparing rasam that would serve 8 to 10 people.
- Tamarind – 75g
- Oil – 6 tablespoon (prefer groundnut oil)
- Red gram – 3 tablespoon
- Coriander – 2 tablespoon
- Pepper – 1 tablespoon
- Cumin – 1 tablespoon
- Red Chilli – 9
- Curry leaves – few
- Coriander stems – taken after removing leaves from 1 bunch
- Tomato – 2
- Water – 1 litre
- Salt – 3/4 tablespoon
- Turmeric powder – 1/4 tablespoon
- Coriander leaves – few
- Garlic – 10 cloves
- Mustard seeds – 1/4 tablespoon
- Asafetida – 1/4 tablespoon
Things to be done before we start cooking
- Soak 75 grams of tamarind in a bowl with 500 ml water for 2 hours. After soaking for 2 hours, remove the tamarind, keeping aside the flavorful water alone for preparing our rasam.
- Wash 2 medium sized tomatoes.
Steps to Prepare
1 Place a flat pan on the burner, turn on the flame, let the pan get a little hot.
Pour 3 tablespoons of oil (prefer ground nut oil).
2 Add the below 5 items to the hot pan –
- Red gram – 3 tablespoon
- Coriander – 2 tablespoon
- Pepper – 1 tablespoon
- Cumin – 1 tablespoon
- Red Chilli – 5
3 Start stirring till the red grams turn light golden brown. Please see that the flame is in medium or low mode to avoid burning off the pulse.
Once the red gram starts turning brown, add few curry leaves and stir for some more time.
4 When we see, the red grams have turned to golden brown, turn off the flame.
Transfer the contents along with oil to a mixy jar for grinding them to a coarse paste.
Please note, don’t pour water for grinding.
Grind till fine paste, then keep aside the jar for some time.
5 Meanwhile, take a 3-litre vessel (pan) and pour in tamarind water (that we have prepared by soaking tamarind in 500 ml of water)
6 Add coriander stems (obtained after removing leaves from 1 bunch) to the tamarind water.
With hands start crushing the coriander stems for the flavor to spread in tamarind water.
Then, remove the stems.
7 Crush 2 tomatoes with hand and add it to the tamarind water.
8 Turn on the flame, pour in 1 litre of water to the vessel with tamarind water.
Then add –
- Salt – 3/4 tablespoon
- Turmeric powder – 1/4 tablespoon
- Green Chilli – 2
(Cut the green chillies into 2 (from top to bottom) and then add them)
Stir well for 10 seconds.
9 Close the vessel with a suitable lid – Turn the flame to high mode – Let the rasam boil well.
After 3 to 4 minutes, remove the lid, turn the flame to low mode.
Take a little rasam, check for salt and spice level.
If need be, we can add a little of salt.
10 Again, close the vessel with a lid, turn the flame to high mode, let the rasam boil for 2 minutes.
Now, turn off the flame. Remove the lid.
11 Its time to add the masala paste that we prepared in step 4 to the vessel with rasam.
Then sprinkle a few coriander leaves on the top.
12 Crush 10 cloves of garlic with help of ‘mortar and pestle’. Keep them ready for use in next step.
13 Take a flat pan, place it on the burner with flame ON.
Then, pour 3 tablespoons of oil. Once oil is hot, add –
- Mustard – 1/4 tablespoon.
- Asafetida – 1/4 tablespoon
- Red chilli – 4
- Curry leaves – few
Stir a little for 10 seconds. Then add the crushed garlic.
Stir again till garlics turn light golden brown.
14 Turn the flame off once garlics turn golden brown, then transfer the contents from pan to the rasam available in another vessel. Stir a little.
That’s all folks, our rasam is ready for tasting.
