Kalyana Rasam

This is another favorite of mine from my aunt’s recipes. I had visited my aunt last year during my trip to India and she had made a variety of food for lunch, which is not unusual considering my aunt loves to cook for people and she is so good at it. She had made this rasam and served it as rasam sadham ( rasam mixed with rice and ghee) and I just loved it. It was my favorite of all the items she had made that day. I could picture myself having a hot bowl of rasam sadham on a cold winter morning, watching my favorite tv show! So I got the recipe from my aunt and have tried it many times since then! I finally managed to click a picture ( not a very good one though!) to post it in the blog. Hope you all enjoy the recipe as much as I did. I would recommend eating this hot, mixed with well cooked rice and some ghee! Trust me, it is so yumm 🙂

Ingredients:

For rasam spice powder

• 2 tbsp coriander seeds
• 1 tsp peppercorn
• 1 tsp cumin seeds
• 11/2 tbsp toor dhal

For rasam:

• 1 small lemon size tamarind
• 1 big tomato puree or 2 medium size tomato puree
• 1/4 tsp turmeric powder
• 1/4 tsp asafoetida
• 1 sprig curry leaves
• 1 cup thin dhal water
• salt to taste

For tempering:

• 1 /2 tsp mustard seeds
• 1/2 tsp jeera
• 1 tsp ghee

Method:

Dry roast the ingredients for the spice powder and grind it to a smooth powder (Alternatively, you can grind them into powder without dry roasting them)

Extract 3 cups of tamarind water from the tamarind by soaking the tamarind in hot water for 15-20 minutes.

In a pan, add the tamarind water, tomato puree, turmeric, asafoetida, curry leaves, salt and let it boil until the raw smell of tamarind and tomato is gone.

Then add the dhal water, spice powder and bring let it boil for about a minute or two and switch off the stove. (note: keep the dhal water very thin as we already have some dhal in the spice powder. You do not want the rasam to be very thick) If the rasam is thick add some more water to thin it out and adjust salt accordingly.

Now heat ghee and temper with mustard seeds and jeera. When the mustard sizzles, add it to the rasam to temper it.

Serve hot.