PEPPER RASAM / MALAGA RASAM / MENASINA SAARU

Malagu Rasam (I will also call this Pepper Soup)

Ingredients to make the Pepper rasam powder:

Black gram (Uddin bele) - 1 cup
Coriander seeds (Dhania seeds) - ½ cup
Dry coconut (Kobri) – 3/4th cup
Black Peppercorns (Menasu) - 1 tbl spn
Cumin seeds (Jeerage) – 2 tspn
Curry leaves (karbevu) - 30 leaves

It’s very simple. Just fry them all without oil and grind them to powder.

Ingredients to make rasam:

Red gram (tur dhal/togari bele) – ½ cup
Pepper rasam powder – 1-2 tspns (depending on your taste)
Coriander leaves – 2 tspns
Salt to taste

Preparing Rasam:

1. Pressure cook the red gram.
2. In a vessel, boil water with the pepper rasam powder, salt and the red gram. Boil for about 10 mins and garnish with coriander leaves.
3. If preparing for kids take care not to add too much of the pepper powder as it might be too spicy for them.
4. Also can temper with little oil/ghee and cumin seeds.
5. Serve the rasam with ½ tspn of ghee and soft white rice.
6. Also can be served like a soup on a chilly day. (For soup reduce the amount of red gram and mash it well before boiling)

This rasam helps cure cold and cough. On a rainy day it’s fantastic to start a meal with a soup like this.

Sending this post to Sheetal's Kitchen for SWC-KARNATAKA

Carrot and Kohlrabi soup

As promised I am including other recipes apart from Iyengar food. This one is definitely among that group and will surely attract kids.

Like how we appreciate and crave for good looking food, children are more choosy when it comes to food. So its all the more important to make their food look good and taste good.

Recently when my inlaws visited me , my father-in-law had been to veggie shopping. Whenever he goes, me and my mother-in-law know for sure that the whole of subzi mandi(veggie market) will be at home:-). Like I said, he had got 2 bunches of kohlrabi(navilkosu in kannada and ganth gobi in hindi). I used one bunch while they were here. I made akki rotti with some more yesterday. Today i thought I will make soup with carrot and the remaining kohlrabi. Its amazing for this winter. One more thing about vegetable soups are that they are really fast to make and very tasty.

Ingredients: (Serves 4)

Kohlrabi (chopped)- 1

Carrot (chopped)-1 big one

Salt to taste

Pepper- freshly ground (2tspns)

Butter-1tbslpn

Preparation:
1. Boil carrot and kohlrabi together in water with little salt.
2. Once its cooked , cool it and blend it to a puree. Thin it with 2 cups of water.
3. Place it again for heating and bring it to one boil. Check for salt and add freshly ground pepper.
4. Add butter and mix well.
5. For garnishing sprinkle some bread crumbs, pepper and serve hot
with bun or toasted bread.