Noodles and Rice

Lemon Rasam

by Stef on August 30th, 2007

You cannot be Filipino and not love sinigang. For that reason alone, rasam would be tops on a Filipino’s list of favorite Indian foods. Rasam is what I make in the cold season, when I don’t have fish or meat in the freezer and yet I’m longing for something hot and sour, to sip and savor. My favorite rasam comes from Indian Home Cooking by Suvir Saran. I have varied the ingredients from time to time based on what I had, or other rasam recipes I’ve found on the ‘net. And now I have a confession to make — sometimes when I’m lazy I use Filipino sinigang broth powder in the base. Or I start out making traditional rasam, but use the sinigang mix to adjust the sourness of the broth. (Just thinking about this makes my mouth water again.) But here’s Saran’s recipe (rewritten to suit me:)), and links to other rasam you can try.

1 tablespoon coriander seeds
1 1/2 teaspoons black peppercorns
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Make the spice mixture: Grind all to a fine powder using a mortar and pestle or a small coffee grinder reserved for the purpose. (Although, I think I’ve mentioned before, it’s so much fun to make coffee and find that there’s leftover spice in the grinder that flavors it — cardamom works really well!)

1 cup yellow split peas
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
6 cups water
1 1/2 teaspoons tamarind concentrate (I sometimes double this, or use a chunk chopped off a tamarind block)
1/2 cup warm water
1 1/2 cups chopped tomatoes, divided use
2 large garlic cloves
1 organic lemon, cut in half and juiced; reserve the lemon halves
1/4 teaspoon asafetida powder
4 hot green chiles, slit in the middle but not all the way through
2 teaspoons salt or to taste

Make the broth: Combine split peas, turmeric, and water in a saucepan. Bring to a boil and skim. Reduce heat to a simmer and cook, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking, until peas are tender, half an hour or so. While the peas are cooking, dissolve the tamarind concentrate in the water. Puree 1 1/2 cups of the tomatoes, plus the garlic, in a food processor or blender. When the peas are done, strain them and reserve the peas for another use. Measure the broth and add water if necessary to make 4 cups. Return to saucepan and add lemon halves. Bring to a boil and skim. Add tamarind water, the tomato-garlic puree, the ground spice mixture, the asafetida, the chiles, and the salt. Simmer 10 minutes, then add the remaining tomatoes and cook 3 more minutes.

2 teaspoons canola oil
2 teaspoons black mustard seeds
3 whole dried red chiles
4 fresh curry leaves, torn

1/4 cup chopped cilantro

Make the tempering oil: In a small saucepan, heat the oil and mustard seeds until the seeds crackle, 1-2 minutes. Add chiles and cook, stirring, until starting to brown. Add curry leaves and stir.

Stir tempering oil into soup along with lemon juice and chopped cilantro. Serve hot.

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I either toss the split peas after mashing them up a bit back into the soup, or mix peas and some cooked rice, and pour the rasam over all… or make the split peas into a salad, as Suvir Saran suggests.

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More rasam recipes for you:

Chandrika’s Black-Eyed Beans Rasam
Saffron has a recipe here and a really cute story about her first encounter with a “melting pot” called eeya chombu. For a discussion of eeya chombu / eeyum shombu, click here or . (Heh, just ignore the little arguments, there’s is good information there.)
Indira’s Tomato Rasam and Taro Root Rasam.
Shathabhishekam Rasam from Hemant Trivedi
a very nice rasam for when you’ve got an abundance of mint to harvest, from Priya at Sugar and Spices
Ginger Rasam from Viji at Yum Blog
Priyanka’s Mango Rasam calling for raw mango seed, which I haven’t tried before!

One of the things I love about food bloggers is how they detail instructions that you normally wouldn’t see in a cookbook, or make suggestions that you may not have thought of. One person says that rasam should never be allowed to boil. Indira says that very little oil should be used for the tempering oil. Keep those in mind when you experiment on your rasam.

Tags: Indian, indian-cuisine, indian-soup, rasam, Soups and Stews, tamarind

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POSTED IN: Indian, Soups and Stews