Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Rasam or Saaru Powder


Today I am in a mood to write more recipes since I have both mood and time. Its my kids nap time. The house is so silent, except my keyboard typing sound. I am sitting in my bed in between my kids ,who are in their sweet sleep, with my lap top and the recipe book! The day I started cooking my father got me a book to write down the recipes and the method. So I used to write down every single step carefully in that book, what my mother used to teach me! And when I came to this country after my marriage I got the book with me, and I always go through it before I cook, even today. I feel that I am talking to my mom while I am cooking, so I go through this book. As I had written in my Saaru recipe that I would be writing the Rasam powder reciepe, so here it goes.

Ingredients:
2 Tsp of Mustard seeds
3 Tsp of Cumin seeds(jeerige, in kannada)
2 Tsp of Fenugreek seeds(Methi seeds)
2 Tsp of pepper
1 Tsp of white asafotedia
6 cups of Red chilles(salem and byadagi variety)
3 cups of Coriander seeds(Dhania)
1 bunch of curry leaves
1 spoon of Oil

Method:
Before writing the method I would like to say few things about frying. Always keep the heat in sim. Before frying keep either a big plate or a big bowl which is totally dry ,aside,so that you can put all the fried spices once they are done. Some spices need to be dry fry and some need to be fried in little bit of oil, so always make sure you fry dry spices first. Break the red chilles into small pieces and then measure in the cup. Its always double the coriander seeds.

Take a medium size pan and put it on the heat, and first dry fry mustard seeds, once they pop up, transfer to a bowl or a plate. Next dry fry Cumin seeds, once they change colour and get the aroma transfer to the bowl. Then dry fry Fenugreek seeds, once they change colour and get the aroma transfer it into a bowl.

Now add oil and fry pepper, it will starts to pop up transfer to the bowl, then add hing/asafoteda and transfer it to the bowl.

Now put Red chilles, if you have to do this in couple of batches also its fine. My mom never fries red chilles until it turns black. If you fry the red chilles until black, the whole house would be filled with chilles smell and you cannot stop caughing and the smell would not go for days!

So I fry only until the red chilles get hot and transfer it into the bowl.

After th chilles are done, now fry coriander seeds. Again my mom never fries corainder seeds until it changes colour. She just warm it up and once its done transfer this into the bowl, this also needs couple of batches of frying.

Finally fry the washed,dried curry leaves, until they are very crisp, you can crumble in your finger, thats how crisp the curry leaves should be and transfer this into bowl.

Once all the ingredients are cool, grind into a fine powder again in 2-3 batches and mix all the powder together in a big bowl, so that every thing is mixed nicley and store them in a air tight container.

It depends on how many times you make Rasam or Saaru, for me to tell how many months it would come.

I make 2-3 times Rasam in a week and this measure of Rasam powder would last me for 2 1/2 to 3 months!

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