Tomato Rasam and Sambar

Recipe by: Bloodie Uploaded by Drimble Wedge

This is a complaint that has nothing to do with the thread, but I figured it had to do with Indian food so I should put it here.

Over Christmas break, I went home and wrote down all the recipes I could find from my mom's cookbook that her mother handwrote for her when my mom was pregnant with me, and I also picked her brain and wrote down all her modified recipes from THE Tambram cookbook called "Cook and See". They're modifications because my mother is from Kerala, and the cuisine is just different enough that it's really good, but neither traditional Kerala Brahmin food nor Tamil Brahmin food. And I wrote everything out because I don't like keeping my computer in my kitchen, and typewritten recipes that aren't in published cookbooks weird me out a bit.

I brought it back to school, and then had to go home for two weeks at the end of the year for family reasons after packing all my things so they could be moved to my new apartment. During the 24 hours in which I was not with my things, my roommate OPENED MY BOX OF BOOKS and TOOK THE BOOK. And then asked me whether leaving curry leaves out of vattha kozhambu was an OK thing to do.

I mean. Honestly. Now I am in New York alone with no home food. And I was going to spend the summer reposting the recipes in this thread for you guys. I can get the recipes again, of course, and I think my dad actually may have photocopied it, but that doesn't make me less mad.

To make myself feel better, I have recipes for tomato rasam and sambar, which I memorized because they are so basic. So enjoy, everybody!

RASAM

• 1/2 c toor dal, cooked
• 2 large tomatoes
• 1 tsp crushed black pepper
• 1/2 tsp asafoetida, powdered
• 2 tsp cumin seeds
• 2 pearls garlic
• 1 tsp sambar powder*
• 2 tsp lemon juice
• 2 tbsp fresh cilantro, chopped
• 1 tsp oil
• 4 c water
• salt, to taste

Cook toor dal in 3/4 cup of hot water in a pressure cooker. Let it screech three times (I don't know how to cook toor dal any other way, but I figure if you boil it until it's soft that works too). Cut the tomatoes into smallish cubes. Crush the garlic with asafoetida, black pepper and cumin seeds. Heat the oil and fry this until it smells good. Stir in the tomatoes and let them cook for a bit. Then add the sambar powder and salt, mix well then add two cups of water. Mash up the dal really well in the other two cups of water while everything else boils - if it's cooked properly it will practically dissolve. Add the dal and let it boil for about ten minutes, then add the cilantro and lemon juice and serve hot.

• I have NO idea how to grind sambar powder or what goes in it. I mean i have a basic idea but I wouldn't give a recipe without knowing exactly. I think you can get this in stores, though.

SAMBAR

• 2 c chopped vegetables
• 1 lime-sized ball tamarind; alternatively, 1-2 tbsp home-made tamarind paste*
• 1 tsp turmeric powder
• salt, to taste
• 1/2 tsp mustard seeds
• 1/2 c toor dal, cooked
• 2 tbsp fresh cilantro, chopped

Stuff to grind up:

• 1 tbsp oil
• 2-3 dry red chillies
• 1 tbsp channa dal
• 1 tbsp coriander seeds
• 3/4 tsp fenugreek seeds
• 1/2 tsp asafoetida powder
• 2 tbsp grated unsweetened coconut

Heat the oil in a heavy-bottomed pan and add the channa dal and dried chillies (don't cut them, they'll burn). Add the coriander seeds and fenugreek - the fenugreek seeds need to pop, you will hear them. Add the asafoetida and the coconut IMMEDIATELY because otherwise the asafoetida will burn. When everything's been added and tossed really lightly, remove from heat and allow to cool. When everything has cooled down, you need to grind the mixture to a smooth, but not an especially runny, paste.

Soak the tamarind in two cups of boiling water for 30 minutes. It should dissociate in the water. Then squeeze out the tamarind - your hand works best for this - and transfer the juice to a different bowl. Keep doing this (I use a colander) until you can't squeeze any more juice out of the fibre. Add more water to the fibre if you need to do do this. Throw away the fibre and heat your tamarind juice in a saucepan with 1/2 tsp oil and some salt and 1/2 tsp turmeric. While you're doing this, cook the vegetables in one cup of water with more salt and the rest of the turmeric. The vegetables need to be soft but not disintegrated, and the tamarind needs to boil until it reduces by half. It will probably spatter, and you can tell it's done by the smell. Pour the tamarind juice into the vegetables and let everything come to a boil once. Add the toor dal now, but you don't need to squish it like for rasam. Let this boil up one time as well, and then add the ground paste and let it boil once one more time - then turn off the heat.

After you've added the paste, pop the mustard seeds in oil and when the heat is off, add this to the sambar, throw in the cilantro and serve. Over rice is best, but both sambar and rasam are delicious with dosai, idli, vadai, etc. Your sambar needs to be a little runnier than the above recipe calls for to eat with dosai/idli/vadai, so you can water it down a little bit. You can use most vegetables in sambar - bell peppers, onions, carrots, potatoes, pumpkins, drumsticks, any type of squash, all of the above, you get the idea. It's best with onions and potatoes though, if you ask me. ALSO shallots. Delicious with shallots, because you can throw them in and cook them whole without the skins, and when they get soft you can pick them out of the sambar and eat them layer by onionny, fenugreeky, turmericky layer. And then get yelled at by your mother because it's rude to slurp.

RECIPE FOR HOMEMADE TAMARIND PASTE

• A block of tamarind
• Some salt
• Some turmeric
• About 2 tbsp of oil

My mom uses fresh tamarind, I don't know where she gets it, but at almost every Indian store in the world you can get this stuff in solid blocks. I use it a lot, and it keeps better this way, but in the same way as you do for sambar, it's actually possible to turn an entire block of tamarind into juice/paste and stick it in your fridge. It keeps FOREVER, at least for one month, if not longer. You just need to make sure not to stick wet spoons in it. So, as above, unwrap your block, stick it in a bowl, and pour - I usually use 4 cups or so - boiling water into it. Let it sit for an hour or so, and then come back and get to work squishing. The consistency takes a bit of practice - there's so much pectin in this stuff that the water turns to puddingy goop within one squish - but from what I can tell, it needs to be a little runnier than that. Dump it into a big saucepan, you will have a lot of goop if you've done it right, add your oil and salt and turmeric, and let it hang out and splatter everywhere uncovered until you've got about half of it left and it should also smell different. The raw tamarind smell is really distinctive, but so is the cooked smell, and you'll know it in a whiff. It should also have the consistency of a thick paste. You can use this stuff for everything, and it cuts down on a bunch of prep time.