Mysore Rasam

Much as I love a good, tangy rasam, I don't find myself making it often. I usually make it only when one of us falls ill. This time round, I made rasam just because I wanted to (The fact that I have chosen to showcase dishes from Karnataka for the blogging marathon does have a small bearing on this)and not as a cure for illness.
The recipe is from Mallika Badrinath's Classic Lunch Recipes.

What you need:
Tuar dal - 1/2 cup
Tamarind - a lemon sized ball soaked in water
Corriander seeds/dhania - 2 tsp
Black peppercorns - 10
Red chillies - 3
Cumin seeds/jeera - 1 tsp
Garlic - 8 pods
Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp
Salt - to taste
Jaggery - a small piece
Curry leaves - a few

Add cumin,dhania,peppercorns, broken red chillies,garlic and turmeric powder to the dal. Add just enough water to cover it and cook until one whistle.
Let it cool. Drain off excess water(don't throw it away.....keep it aside) and grind the cooked dal to a coarse paste.
Add enough water to the soaked tamarind to make about 2.5 cups of thin tamarind extract. Add the ground dal, water in which dal was cooked,salt and jaggery to this. Crush the curry leaves with your hands and mix it in. Let it boil for about 10-12 minutes until the flavours are well blended.
Serve hot with rice.
Do take a look at what my fellow marathoners are up to.

Milagu rasam

Up until a few days back, I had absolutely no intention of blogging about something as mundane as rasam. A question from my brother as to what went into the making of milagu rasam is what made me think that there are people out there who could use this recipe. Milagu rasam is usually made when someone at home suffers from cold or cough.....the pepper and cumin in it have curative properties and soothe the throat.

What you need:
Tamarind - a lemon sized amount, soaked in hot water and squeezed to extract pulp
Peppercorns - 3/4 tsp
Cumin seeds - 3/4 tsp
Ghee - 2 tsp
Curry leaves - a few
Salt
Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp

Heat a spoonful of ghee in a pan. Coarsely crush the cumin a pepper together using a pestle and mortar or in the blender. Fry this, along with the curry leaves,in ghee until aromatic and dark brown in colour.

Add tamarind extract to this. Add turmeric powder and salt. Let it boil until it is reduced to about 3/4th of the original quantity.

Add a cup of water and heat until it just starts to boil. Switch off heat. Heat a tsp of ghee in a small pan. Add some mustard seeds, broken red chillies and cumin seeds to it. When the seeds start to pop, pour it over the rasam.

Drink this hot or mix with hot rice.
Check out what my fellow marathoners Srivalli, Priya Suresh, Priya Vasu,Gayatri,Monika, PJ, Azeema,Usha, Ayeesha,Veena, Soumya and Reva are cooking.