Creamy Sweet Corn Soup

I love the sweet corn soup in the restaurants. Loved this recipe
Things we need


Unsalted Butter - 3 tbs
Corn kernels - 2 cup
Red Onion 1/2
Ginger 1/2 inch Piece
Green Chilies 3
Carrot - 1 cubed
Salt
Fresh ground Pepper

Pressure cook the corn with the green chilies and ginger.
Once it is done, take out and discard the ginger and the chilies.  Reserve some of the corn kernels and puree the rest in a blender. In a casserole, add butter, when hot, add the onions and saute until translucent.Add the carrots and saute until soft. Stir in the pureed corn. allow it to a boil. Add salt. Then add some milk as per the desired consistency. Add the pepper

Garnish with cilantro.  Some drops of lemon juice shall add a tangy flavor too. Serve Hot with a Toasted Sandwich.

Rasam Podi/ Rasam Powder

Moving to a new place, I need to equip my kitchen for comfortable functioning. I had already posted the Sambar Podi. This is the homemade instant rasam podi. It is pretty easy to make & shelve.

Here are the things we need

Toor Dal              -  1 cup
Coriander seeds   -  3 cup
Black pepper       -  3/4 cup
Red chilli              -  4 or 5
Cumin Seeds        -  1/2 cup
Asafoetida            -  a little

Dry roast the first four ingredients and allow it to cool. Grind them along with the cumin seeds.

For the recipe of how make Rasam, follow the link.

Rasam vadai, Bonda Soup

This is one of my granny's recipes...A very traditional one.

Things we need

For Vada
Urad dal  - 1 1/2
Pepper
Oil to fry
Salt


For Rasam
Moong dal 1/2 cup
Urad Dal - 1 Spoon
Pepper - 10/15 corns
Asafoetida - a pinch
Cumin seeds - 1 spoon
Red chillies - 3
Salt
Tamarind paste - 3 1/2 spoons
Mustard seeds
Curry Leaves.

Vada
This recipe is meant for 4 people. You can alter according to your needs.
Soak 1 1/2 cups of urad dal  for 2 hrs. Then grind it with pepper & salt. I use an Indian mixer. So I just sprinkle water on & off while grinding in order to get a thick batter. I keep the batter in the fridge for an hour so that the batter thickens up a bit more.


Make it into flat vadas & Fry them. If this doesn't work, just make tiny balls & fry them.  (I was unable to make them into flat vada shaped ones, so i made small balls & they taste great too) . Keep them on a tissue paper to have the oil absorbed.

 Rasam
 Pressure cook the moong dal with water for 4 whistles. once done, mash the dal well & make it a little watery & set it aside.

With a little oil, roast the pepper corns, urad dal, cumin seeds, asafoetida, red chillies. Then grind them to a paste.
In a vessel take the tamarind paste add water & salt to it & allow it to boil. Then add the above masala to it & bring it to a boil till it froths. then add the dal water & allow it to boil. For the seasoning, in a kadai, take a little oil, add mustard seeds, little cumin seeds & curry leaves & add it to the rasam.

Rasam is done. Add the vadas to the rasam & allow it to soak for an hour. Well rasam vada is done.
The flavor of pepper should be on the higher side, as it gives taste to the rasam & the vada.
Pepper is very good for health & if you have noticed, for this rasam  we haven;t used toor dal. So its totally a different taste to experiment on.

Bon apétit!

Mixed Vegatable Soup

I had been wanting to try out a mixed vegetable soup for a while. I just thought about a couple of ingredients & information bagage from my mom, I could arrive at this recipe

Things we need

Broccoli - 3-5 heads

Cauliflower - 3-5 heads

Onion - 1/2 well sliced

Corn fennels - 1/2 spoon

Green peas - 1 spoon

Beans - 3 0r 4 cut into midium pieces

Carrots - 1 cubed

Grated ginger

1/2 spoon butter / olive oil

Salt

Pinch of dried Oregano & Basil for flavour (optional)

Crushed Pepper

1/4 Tbs of Corn flour

Procedure

In a vessel, take some butter. When it is hot, add the onions & saute till they are translucent, then add ginger & fry well. Then add all the vegetables & salt & saute well. Cover the vessel with a lid. Stir them often. Add crushed pepper & add about a cup of water. Close & allow it to boil for 15 to 20 mins. Then add the dry basil & oregano. Add 1/4 spoon butter to this & allow it to cook for 5 minutes & switch off.

I like the soup watery. If you want a little thicker consistency, dissolve the corn powder in nomal water, add it to the soup & bring it to boil.

Soup can be served in a bread bowl & with just some bread or a baguette.

Bon Apétit.

Tomato Rasam, How to make Fresh Masala

This Rasam is called Arachu vitta rasam.

Ingredients

Toor Dal - 1 1/2 cup

Tomato - 2 chopped

Tamarind - a small lemon sized

Turmeric - 1/2 spoon

Corriander seeds (Dhania) - 2 spoons

Pepper corns - 15

Cumin Seeds (Jeera) = 1spoon

Asafoetida

Corriander leaves

Ghee - 1 spoon

Mustard

Curry leaves

Green chilli

Salt

Oil

Preparation

Cook 1 cup of toor dal in pressure cooker.

In a kadai, toor dal (2 spoons), corriander seed (2 spoons), pepper corns (15), asafoetida and fry in 2-spoon oil. When it is almost done, add Jeera and transfer it to a plate to cool. Then grind it adding water sparsely.(Consistency - not too coarse not to fine).

The Rasam fresh masala is ready.

Soak tamarind and obtain the extract and dilute it to 1½ cups. Add salt, cut-tomato, turmeric powder and bring it to boil.

Add paste to boiling tamarind water, boil further (10 minutes), add pre-cooked toor dhall, add water if needed, reduce heat, wait till it froths completely, then add coriander leaves and karuveppilai and remove from oven.

Add fried mustard. [If some special flavour is needed fry mustard, cumin seed (1 spoon) and 2 split green chilli in ghee plus oil and add to the rasam.

Voila...delicious rasam to go.

How to makeTomato Rasam

First we'l see how to make rasam podi. This is made and  stored, so that its easy to use we want to make rasam. The freshly ground rasam is the tastiest I would say.

There may be lot of varities of rasam, this one is my favourite. This recipe is my mom -in-law's. I adhere to her method. Lets make the podi 1st then the rasam.

How to make Rasam Podi

Ingredients

Toor Dal - 1 cup

Corriander seeds (Dhania) - 3 cups

Pepper corns - 3/4 cups

Red chillies - 4 to 5

Cumin Seeds (Jeera) = 1/2 cup

Preparation

In a kadai, dry roast coriander seeds, Chillies, Pepper, Toor dal. When it is almost done, add Jeera and transfer it to a plate to cool. Then grind this. (Consistency - not too coarse not to fine).

This is Rasam Podi.

How to make the Rasam

Ingredients

Tomato - 2 chopped

Tamarind - a small lemon sized

Turmeric - 1/2 spoon

Asafoetida

Toor dal - 1/2 cup

Corriander leaves

Ghee - 1 spoon

Mustard

Curry leaves

Salt

As the 1st step, wash the 1/2 cup of toor dal, pressure cook it by addling little turmeric. When that is done, take a spoon and mash it well by adding a little water. Keep this aside.

Then in a small bowl, take the tamarind &1 1/2 glass warm water, extract the juice well & throw the residue. To this tamarind add, a little turmeric, salt, a pinch of asafoetida and; bring it to boil.

Add the tomatoes. When the skin of the tomatoes peel away & the mixture boils up, add 3 spoons of rasam podi and bring it to boil. When the mixture rises up, stir well. The aroma of the rasam will rise.

Now, add the cooked & mashed toor dal into this. Also add the corriander leaves. And when it boils and rises up, take it off the gas.

If its over cooked, the rasam give a burnt taste. So make sure you dont over heat it.

The rasam is almost done.

Now we have to season it. In a skillet, heat ghee add mustard seeds, when its spurts, add some cumin seeds, a pinch of asafoetida and then the curry leaves. When done add this to the rasam.

Delicious Rasam is done.

Few tips: If ghee is not available, we can use oil.

When the curry are added, it will spurt out. So, we can have a lid handy. So when we add these curry leaves to the kadai, we can immediaely close it. This avoids spill overs of the mustard seeds on the gas & spurting out of the ghee/oil on our hands.

Rasam can be mixed with rice and taken. It can be eaten with any Kariamudhu (curry).

The Ingredients in the rasam actually helps in enhancing digestion.