Dwadasi Rasam

Today is Ekadasi, the 11th day after the new moon (Amavasya). Traditionally folks used to fast on Ekadasi day. The terms of fasting ranges from full to partial depending on age, and how devout one is.

The following day, Dwadasi, in Tamilian families, they cook a special rasam, called Dwadasi Rasam. The main difference between regular rasam and this rasam is that moong dal is used instead of toor dal. Reason being that coming out of fasting, one should be eating food that is easy to digest. The traditional tamarind and tomatoes are also skipped, and lemon juice is used instead.

I have seen several recipes of dwadasi rasam include toor dal as well. As with the diversity of our country, one can expect many variations in this as well.

Try this dwadasi rasam. Tell us what you think, and please add your variations to the comments section as well.

Ingredients:

Moong Dal (Split) – ¼ cup
Turmeric Powder ½ tsp.
Water 2 cups.
Grated Ginger 1 tbsp
Chopped curry leaves – a few
Lemon Juice 2 tbsp.
Salt to taste.

Roast and Powder coarsely

Urad dal (Split) ¾ tsp.
Chana dal ½ tsp.
Black Pepper 1 tbsp.
Jeera 1 tsp.
Red Chilies 2 no.
Curry Leaves

FOR TADKA:

Oil 1 tbsp (cold pressed groundnut oil or sesame oil works great. Adds a nice aroma) .
Mustard seeds 1/2 tsp
Curry leaves a little
Crushed red chilies 2 no.
Asafoetida (Hing) a pinch
Chopped Coriander leaves for garnish

Method:

Pressure cook the dal with turmeric powder. Mash the dal and add 2 cup of water and dilute it. Transfer into the big vessel.
Add salt, turmeric powder, ginger, curry leaves and Hing and bring to boil on low fire.
In mean time, roast above ingredients (except jeera) and powder it coarsely along with jeera.
Add ground powder and boil , while rasam froths up, remove from the fire.
With one tablespoon oil, fry the mustard seeds ,when they burst add curry leaves crushed red chilies and Hing to it and pour them to the Rasam.
Add freshly squeezed lemon juice and mix well.
Garnish with chopped cilantro.

Note: Lemon juice gives the sourness and pepper gives the taste and strong aroma for the rasam.

Home cooked Dal Makhni

When I eat at a restaurant, I oftentimes wonder if I can replicate the same dish at home: keep the richness of the flavour, but cut out that cloyingly heavy feeling you get by eating that cream-and-butter-laden restaurant dish.

If you’re like me, you will like this recipe for Dal Makhani, which I made yesterday. “Makhan” refers to homemade white butter. This recipe contains no butter, but tastes just as good.

dalmakhni

Ingredients: (all measurements are approximate. Feel free to add or subtract to suit your discretion)

One cup whole masoor dal (also known as whole red lentil. If you live outside the Indian subcontinent, you will find it in any Indian or middle eastern grocery store)
Half cup rajma (red kidney bean)
One onion, finely chopped
Few garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 green chillies, sliced lengthwise
3 tomatoes, finely chopped
One fistful of cashew nuts
Spices: Salt, dhania (Coriander) powder, jeera (Cumin) powder, haldi (turmeric) powder and optionally some pounded cinnamon, elaichi (cardamom). If you want it light on spices, skip the cinnamon and elaichi.

Method:

Soak the rajma in warm water for a hour. Soak the cashews in warm water separately for an hour.
Cook the masoor dal and rajma in a cooker and ensure they are well cooked, but not too gooey. Mash them with a hand masher so you can still see pieces of the lentil, but they’re soft and mixed together
In a kadai (wide saute pan), heat some groundnut oil, add the onions, garlic, green chillies. Saute until the onions are lightly brown, then add the tomatoes; reduce the flame, put a lid on and cook until the tomatoes turn soft
Now add the mashed dal, salt and other spices and let it simmer a few minutes. (I prefer to add the spices at this time, and not while sauteing the onions as this preserves their flavour and aroma)
Grind the soaked cashews into a fine, slightly runny paste. Add most of it into the dal and mix it up.
Pour into a bowl to serve, drizzle the rest of the cashew paste on top, add a few sprigs of coriander leaves to garnish.
Eat with hot rotis

This is an amazing comfort food during the rainy season. If there is any of it left over, just warm it up and eat it as a snack. Do try it out and let me know how it was.

Know Your Oils

Find out all about oils to decide which ones are better.

Know Your Oils

coldpressedoil

There is so much information about oils these days. Which oils are better, which ones are “healthier”, which ones to avoid etc etc. The hope of this article is to provide some simple clarity on oils.

What are oils? what sort of oils should we consume, and what should we avoid?
Oils are the fatty part of vegetables, seeds or nuts. Sunflower Oil, Sesame Oil, Coconut Oil, Olive Oil, Groundnut Oil etc. Oils are concentrated fat and hence must be used sparingly. Even if the plant source is extremely nutritious (eg: mustard), its oil must still be used sparingly.

Refined Oils: Ignore the use of words that make a product sound cool. Refined oils are hardly “suave and sophisticated”.

They are made by heating the seeds or nuts to very high temperatures to extract the oil. Oil molecules when heated to very high temperatures begin to break down into other compounds, some of which are carcinogenic in nature (ie cancer causing). High temperature extraction is used in the industry because it extracts a much higher percentage of oil from the base.
Commercial solvents such as hexane are used to extract more oils from the base. Exposure to hexane by inhalation is detrimental to health. This hexane isn’t affecting you directly, but it certainly does impact the workers who work in the oil refineries. Something to think about.
Commercial refined oils in the supermarket come with a combination of oils that aren’t listed in the ingredients. The most common of them being cottonseed oil. Cottonseed oil is a by product of the cotton industry. Remember, more than 90% of cotton grown in India is GMO cotton. You are essentially consuming GMO without your knowledge.
To keep the oil looking transparent and uniform and have a longer shelf life, a lot of other solvents and emulsifiers are used. More chemicals in your body that you don’t need.

Organic Cold Pressed Oils: The better and healthy oils. Why Organic? Simple. No toxic chemicals in our food, body, soils, groundwater and air. Healthy and safe for everyone. What is Cold Pressed?

The oil is extracted by placing it in a mortar, and ground by pressing it with a rotating pestle. This keeps the temperature of extraction low (under 49C) and the oil that comes out has never been heated before.
No solvents are used to extract more oil.
Cold pressing is done in “ghanis” in villages in India. The leftover base, called the oil cake is fed to cattle as fodder. It is a rural small scale industry that supplements farmers income from agriculture.
No emulsifiers or other chemicals are used to make it look pretty or increase its shelf life
Cold pressed oils have a lesser shelf life (about 3-4 months)
They are much more tasty because they have not been overheated, and the pressing method preserves taste and nutrients. Cold pressed groundnut oil has an amazing aroma and taste of groundnuts.

Other oil facts: There is no one oil that is better than another. Coconut, Sesame, Groundnut, Mustard, Safflower, all of them are just as good for cooking. In fact, optimal health is when there is variety. Use these oils in rotation, and don’t stick to just one oil alone.

New kids on the block: How about Rice Bran oil, Olive Oil, Soybean Oil etc? 10 years ago, these products weren’t even found in our supermarkets. Many of these are being “pushed” thanks to advertising, and demands are being “created”. If you eat unpolished/brown rice, you will get way more nutrition from rice bran, than you will by consuming rice bran oil, which is its concentrated fat extract. Olives are not native to India. Olive Oil is imported. It is expensive and isn’t of a singularly superlative health quality, that you should spend the money and effort trying to get it. Same with soybean oil. Simple rule: stick to oils that your grandmother used to get, and don’t worry about new “trends”.