Pineapple Rasam

A spicy, soupy Indian dish made from a fruit? That too, a pineapple? It starts off sounding odd, but I just need to bring to attention the surprisingly lovely taste of a cheesy pizza topped with pineapple and jalapeno. Who would have ever thought that pineapples could be eaten on top of bread, tomato sauce, herbs, and cheese? And sweet and tart next to hot and spicy? As ludicrous as it sounds, we all know that the marriage between sweet, tart, and spicy is beautiful and unique.

So why not Pineapple rasam? It is actually prepared during very special occasions such as weddings, but it rarely features as an everyday dish. I think we should remedy this, for this is one tasty rasam that shouldn’t be relegated to just a few days a year.

The process is pretty much the same as preparing Tomato Rasam. Since pineapples are even more tarter than tomatoes, the quantity of tamarind used is decreased, and no jaggery/brown sugar is added. I also added an extra spoon of coriander powder, because I wanted to turn up the spice level a notch so that the sweetness of the pineapple shines through better. Everything else remains the same. But I’m copy-pasting and updating the recipe on this page to minimize one extra click.

Ingredients:

1. ½ cup of cooked, mashed Thoor Dhal (cooked lentils)
2. Half a lime-sized ball of tamarind (approximately ½ - 3/4 inch in diameter)
3. ¾ - 1 cup of diced pineapple (the quantity depends on how tart the fruit is and how much you would like to add; If it’s too tart, reduce the tamarind even more)
4. Two teaspoons of Rasam powder (Ah, that is another post by itself; The powder is a finely ground mixture of dry roasted red chillies, turmeric, coriander seeds, thoor dhal, and channa dhal; variations abound; but these days they are available aplenty in stores - MTR and Shakthi Masala are tried and tested brands)
5. One teaspoon of coriander powder
6. A teaspoon of turmeric
7. A teaspoon or two of salt
8. A teaspoon of ghee (or vegetable oil)
9. A teaspoon of mustard seeds
10. 1/4 teaspoon of Hing
11. A few curry leaves, and coriander leaves (cilantro) for garnish

Preparation:

1. Boil the tamarind ball with enough water to cover it (in the microwave, heat for 2 minutes). Let it cool/seep. When the tamarind is warm enough to be touched, squeeze the pulp to get the extract, and add the extract into a vessel (a medium sauce-pan). Dilute the pulp again with lukewarm water and extract as much “juice” as possible. Discard the pulp.
2. Add the pineapples to the tamarind extract and add 2 cups of water.
3. Add salt, turmeric, rasam powder, coriander powder and turn on the heat.
4. Heat the tangy liquid on medium-heat till the raw taste of tamarind is mellowed and the pineapples are cooked. (Rule of thumb - this step usually takes about 20-25 mins.)
5. Mash the cooked thoor dhal and add it to the Rasam. Continue heating/boiling on low-medium heat for about 5 minutes.
6. Wait till the raw taste of dhal is gone, and the rasam froths and bubbles (as my grandmother adorably says - “wait for multicolored bubbles to come around the edges of the rasam”). Note: do not over-boil the rasam at this stage. Turn off the heat.
7. Heat some ghee (highly recommended), or vegetable oil in a small pan. When hot, add mustard seeds, and let it splutter. Then add curry leaves and Hing powder.
8. Add this seasoning to the Rasam and watch its lovely sizzle. In addition, throw in some washed and cut coriander leaves (cilantro).

This rasam is tangy, sweet, and spicy. The pineapples become sweeter and they taste so good after absorbing all the tamarind and spices. 

This is a good rasam to turn to when the regular tomato becomes a bit redundant.

Easy Entertaining With Fruit Crumble

Entertaining friends used to be a fun time to look forward to.  Now, it's morphed into a tiring, daunting task that requires effort, skill, patience and a certain flair. Why? Simply due to some misplaced, misunderstood, and exaggerated social norms. 

If you'd like to read my 2 cents on easy entertaining, please check out my guest-post at Women's Web. 

I also share a simple recipe for a basic fruit crumble that turns out like this:

Spinach Masiyal

Fresh leafy greens of various kinds are abundantly available in my home State. Each one has its own unique medicinal properties and rich nutritional content that special dishes have been dedicated to them. However, our style of cooking is pretty bad at coming up with salads - there are a few of course, but for the most part it is considered insulting to munch on uncooked leaves. So they are cooked until they wilt, and are spiced until their original taste hides behind a dozen other taste sensations. Still.... despite knowing all this, I would any day prefer such a masiyal (a paste) to a plate full of spinach leaves dressed with a light vinaigrette. My taste buds are spoilt so.

This is my own mish-mash of a spinach masiyal. 90% of it is my grandmother’s and mother’s recipe, but I updated those things that my mother wouldn’t - such as adding the infamous garlic.

Ingredients:

1. 5-6 cups of spinach leaves (remember spinach wilts down to nothing when cooked)
2. 2 green chillies (or more if you’d like)
3. ¼ cup of water
4. ½ teaspoon salt
5. 4 garlic cloves
6. 2 inch strip of tamarind
7. ½ - ¾ teaspoon of jaggery or brown sugar
8. ¼ teaspoon sambar powder or curry powder (optional)
9. 1 teaspoon rice flour
10. ½ teaspoon of mustard seeds
11. ½ teaspoon of split urad dhal / ulutham paruppu
12. 2 dry red chillies
13. 1 teaspoon of oil

Preparation:

1. Crush the garlic cloves and green chillies to make a sort of paste. I use the mortar and pestle to roughly crush and combine the two.
2. Extract the juice of the tamarind strip. Soak it in a little bit of hot water and squeeze out the juice. The juice wouldn’t be more than ½ cup.
3. Cut the spinach leaves and cook them with ¼ cup of water, salt, and the garlic+green chillies paste. Periodically check on the spinach leaves and add a bit of water if needed. Cook on medium heat.
4. When the spinach wilts and cooks, add the tamarind juice, some sambar powder (optional), and brown sugar/jaggery and cook for 10 minutes or so until the raw smell of tamarind dissipates.
5. If the masiyal is watery, thicken it by dissolving 1 teaspoon of rice flour in 1-2 teaspoons of water and adding it to the masiyal. This is a technique used to thicken gravies. Allow the masiyal to cook for 5-10 minutes until it thickens. When it does, remove from heat.
6. Heat a bit of oil. Splutter mustard seeds. Add urad dhal and red chillies, fry for a few seconds, and add the garnish to the masiyal.

That’s it. This recipe has hardly any oil. If you would like it to be a tad more healthier, skip the tamarind and go easy on the spices/chillies. But if you need to coax a fussy eater into having spinach, this is a good dish to try. It can be had as is, can be mixed with steamed rice, or had as a side-dish.

Some people grind/crush the spinach to a smooth paste after it cooks. I personally don’t like the masiyal to resemble baby food, so I skip the crushing/grinding.

As always, you can be creative and add onions and tomatoes along with the spinach. It will turn into a lovely sabzi.

Garlic Rasam

The Garlic suffers from a prejudice that my family (actually my entire community) holds - or, used to hold against it. The aversion is mostly because of its unfortunate pungent smell. But, having come to know of its wonderful medicinal properties, my ancestors seemed to have relented their prejudices at some point, albeit only a tiny bit. Garlic rasam is one such a rare exception - I don’t think there’s any other dish in my community that has garlic as the star ingredient (or an ingredient at all). This warm soup is prepared by cooking garlic cloves in a spicy tamarind juice. It is especially prepared on days when people are nursing a cold or a minor ailment.

I can count the few number of times when my mother prepared garlic rasam. But, it has been featured in the kitchen, nonetheless. So, here is the recipe.

Ingredients:

1. 6-7 cloves of garlic (was that a sharp intake of breath I heard?)
2. a small lime-sized ball of tamarind (approximately 1 inch in diameter)
3. 2-3 dry red chillies
4. ¾ teaspoon of black pepper-corns
5. 2 teaspoons of coriander seeds
6. 1 teaspoon of bengal gram dhal / kadala paruppu
7. 1 teaspoon of cumin seeds
8. 1 teaspoon of mustard seeds
9. few curry leaves
10. ¼ teaspoon of asafoetida
11. 1 teaspoon of ghee
12. 2 teaspoons of oil (olive oil / vegetable oil)
13. 1 teaspoon of salt
14. ½ teaspoon of rasam powder (optional)

Preparation:

1. Extract tamarind juice. Soak the tamarind in hot water for 10 minutes. Squish and squeeze out all the juices. Drain the pulp. Repeat the process for a second time with lukewarm water. Drain the pulp and discard. Add 2-3 cups of water to the extracted tamarind juice.
2. Slightly crush the garlic cloves (I do this, because I believe all the lovely juices come out and infuse better), and fry them for a couple of minutes in a teaspoon of oil. Do not let the garlic brown.
3. Add the slightly fried garlic cloves, salt, and a little bit of rasam powder into the tamarind juice (plus water) and boil on medium heat.
4. As the above heats, roast pepper-corns, coriander seeds, red chillies, and bengal gram dhal in a teaspoon of oil. Roast till the spices release their aroma and the bengal gram dhal begins to turn slightly brown. Do not burn or over-roast. Grind this to a paste with a spoon or two of water. Add this paste to the the garlic+tamarind mix that is heating. And continue to boil.
5. Dry roast the cumin seeds and a few curry leaves (2-3) for a couple of minutes. Grind this to a powder.
6. When the raw scent of tamarind leaves the boiling rasam and the garlic is cooked, add the above cumin powder to the rasam and continue to heat on low-medium heat until the rasam begins to bubble around the edges. Remove rasam from heat.
7. Splutter mustard seeds in a teaspoon of ghee. Add some asafoetida to it and add it to the prepared rasam.

Garlic rasam is ready to be served. It is had as a spicy soup or is mixed with steamed rice. This is also supposed to relieve digestive issues, thanks to the garlic, cumin, and pepper. Cooked garlic doesn’t taste or smell as pungent, so rest assured of that doubt. Seasoned cooks believe garlic tastes sweet when it is roasted or cooked for a long time. I haven’t really tasted the sweetness, but I like cooked/boiled garlic. Obviously, it is a frowned-upon eccentricity of mine that my family chooses to ignore.

Masaal Vadai

Masaal Vadai evokes a very funny and obscure memory. Back home, these crispy, fragrant fritters are usually used as baits in mouse/rat traps. They are known to be excellent lures to capture the scraggly critters! And I vividly remember the time when there were quite a few vadais in my place, because we were trying to catch an elusive mouse. We didn’t get to eat any vadai, though. The mouse ate a few before it was finally trapped. It was then safely released into the wild. 

Although my mom has never made this kind of vadai, they are extremely popular in my city. Every other street corner would house a mobile frying station (a frying pot and accessories on wheels) that will dish out masaal vadais, pakodas, bajjis, etc. Totally unhealthy street food, but tempting nonetheless. Since I had my nose up in the air, I never had such street-food delicacies from street vendors - a regret. But, one of my mother’s aunts who is an excellent cook, used to prepare this for tiffin/snacks. I don’t think she remembers the day/s she made this for me when I stayed at her place, but I sure do, for I bugged her with questions and observed her making the vadais. And I told myself, someday, I would make them too. So, here I am. 

It’s simple to prepare (as I always mention). If I can do it, anybody can do it.