Mysore rasam

Ingredients:
4 tablespoons Tur dal
Turmeric - 1/4 teaspoon
Tamarind - 1 lemon sized ball ( soaked in a cup of warm water)
Tomatoes - 3 medium, pureed
Hing - 2-3 generous pinches
Sambhar powder - 1 teaspoon
Powdered Jaggery - 1 tsp

For the powder
1/4 cup coconut ( grated )
dhania seeds - 1 teaspoon
tur dal - 1 teaspoon
chana dal - 1 teaspoon
red chillies -  2 ( to taste)
pepper - 1/2 teaspoon
jeera - 1/2 teaspoon

For the tempering
Ghee - 1.5 teaspoons
mustard - 1/2 spoon
hing - a pinch
curry leaves -a few
red chilly - 1
coriander leaves for garnishing

Method
Cook the tur dal in 2 cups of water with turmeric until completely soft. churn and set aside.
While the dal is cooking, roast the ingredients for the powder ( except coconut and jeera) until fragrant
Turn off the stove and add coconut and jeera - cool and grind to a powder - not too coarse, not too fine
While the roasted spices are cooling, extract 1.5 cups of juice from the tamarind and boil it with the tomato puree, hing and salt until the raw smell disappears
Add sambhar powder and prepared rasam powder and powdered jaggery and boil for 5 minutes more
Add the dal ( it should be watery/soupy ) and heat until a yellow foam appears on the surface. do not allow the rasam to bubble/boil.

For the tempering 
Heat the ghee in a small kadhai
Sputter the mustard and add the chilly
When the chilly turns bright red, add the hing and curry leaves
Sizzle this over the ready rasam
Garnish with finely chopped coriander leaves




Recipe Courtesy: Shalini via Dailysamayal

Chatni pudi

Ingredients:

• Urad dal                   :1 cup
• Chana dal                : 1 cup
• Red chillies pieces (kashmiri or byadagi) :1 cup (if using other chillies take 3/4 cup)
• Grated copra (dry coconut): 1 cup (If u don’t get copra use desiccated coconut)
• Curry leaves             : a few leaves
• Tamarind                  :  2 inches
• Jaggery                    :  1 large piece
• Oil
• Asafoetida
• Salt
• Mustard seeds for seasoning

 Preparation Method:

1. Keep a large dry bowl available
2. In a frying pan roast urad dal with a spoon of oil till nice and brown and pour into the bowl.
3. In the same frying pan roast chana dal with a spoon of oil till nice and brown, when done add tamarind and fry. Then add red chillies and fry for 1 minute. Pour everything into the bowl.
4. Dry roast Curry leaves, add grated copra and roast for 1 minute
5. Put jaggery and salt and Asafoetida into the hot mix in the bowl
6. Allow the whole thing to cool properly. The red chillies become crisp
7. Grind in batches to an almost smooth powder. Mix thoroughly.
8. Season with mustard. Cool and transfer into air tight bottle.

If you like it softer, you may use fried graml (huragadale) instead of chana dal.

If you do not like it sweet you may reduce the jaggery. 

REcipe Courtesy: Ratna Rao (Via Dailysamayal) 

Method 2:

You need  lot of curry leaves for this. Fry them in a little oil.

Take ½ pav channa dal and ½ pav urad dal and fry them separately in a little oil.

Take enough dry chillies ( Caution : not too much) depending on the quantity of curry leaves and fry it well in a little oil. Add a small piece of asafetida.

Take two handfuls of coriander and fry it well.

Dry coconut                              a handful

Salt                                            to taste

Jaggery                                     a little

Tamarind                                   a small sliver

Powder the dals into a fine powder like flour.

Grind the curry leaves, coriander leaves, tamarind, salt, Asafoetida and jiggery together and pour over the dal powder.

Next powder the dried coconut.

Now mix them all together and grind till they are nicely mixed.

Cool and store. 

Bevina hoovu gojju / Veppampoo Pachadi

Ingredients: 
Fresh Neem leaves      1 tblsp
Mustard                        1 teaspoon             
Methi                            1/2 tsp
Hing                              a pinch
Dry red chillies              2
Tamarand pulp             extracted from tamarind  the size of a large marble
Saarina Pudi                1 1/2 - 2 tsp (depending on how spicy you want it to be) Jaggery                        the size of a marble ( or enough to balance the spicy taste)
Ghee                            a little to fry the neem leaves 
Method:
Fry fresh neem  flowers in a bit of ghee and keep them aside. 
Season a spoon of mustard, half a spoon of methi, a bit of hing and a couple of dry chillies.  
Add the fried flowers and tamarind syrup.  Spray half a spoon of turmeric powder.  Let the syrup not be very thick.  Add enough water and salt.  
Boil well for at least 15 minutes on medium flame.  
Add 1 and a half spoons or 2 spoons of saarina pudi and boil further.  Then add jaggery (enough to balance the sourness and spiciness) and curry leaves. 
Gojju is ready. 
                                                                                        Veppampoo Pachadi

Dried or Fresh Neem flowers            1 tsp
Tamarind Pulp                                   From tamarind the size of a large marble
Chilli Powder                                    1/4 tsp
Powdered jaggery                            4-5 tablsp
Ghee                                                1/2 tsp  to fry the flowers
Salt                                                   a tiny pinch

For tempering:
Oil                                                    1 tsp
Mustard                                            1/2 tsp

Method:
Fry the flowers in Ghee.Dried flowers will serve the purpose but if you can get fresh flowers use them.
Add the tamarind juice and a tiny pinch of salt. Boil for a few minutes till the raw smell of tamarind changes.
Add the Jaggery powder and chilli powder and mix well.
You can adjust the taste and vary the quantities of powders according to your preference now..
Cook for 3 minutes on a low flame.
To thicken the pachadi you can dissolve half a spoon of rice flour in water and add it to the pachadi.
Mix well . Bring it to a boil and switch off.
Season with Mustard spluttered in hot oil.

Variation:
This pachadi can be made with a combination of Mango amd neem leaves.
Cut a mango into small pieces and cook it in water with a little salt. Slit a few green chillies and add them to the mangoes boiling in water. Add Jaggery and cook till the mix thickens. Fry neem leaves in ghee and add them to the pachadi.  Temper with mustard spluttered in hot oil
(In this case mango and green chillies replace tamarind and red chilli powder in the earlier recipe.)

Recipes courtesy: Sudha Narasimhachar (via dailysamayal)

kudhi menasu

Ingredients:
Curry leaves       3 handfuls (if the leaves are the mature variety, use 2)
Peppercorns      10-12
Asafoetida          1/2 tsp.
Tamarind             a small piece (soaked in water)
Salt
Gingelly oil          2 tablespoons

Preparation Method:
Wash the curry leaves and drain water.
Grind together curry leaves, peppercorns,salt, asafoetida and tamarind
using very little water.
In a kadhai, heat gingelly oil. When hot, add the ground mixture
and cook until the water evaporates.

This tastes best when made with gingelly oil.


Recipe Courtesy: Mrs Santha (via dailysamayal)

Saaru

Tur dal                  1 cup

Tomato                 1 large - sliced into two parts

Turmeric               ½ tsp

Mensina pudi         2 tsp (recipe here)

Tamarind              large marble size

Jaggery                ½ tsp

Salt

Chopped coriander leaves 

Curry leaves

Seasoning: ghee, mustard, hing

Cook tur dal and tomato and turmeric in a pressure cooker till well done.

Carefully remove the tomato, release skin and mash pulp. Return tomato pulp to cooked dal and stir into a nice homogenous mix.

Add mensina pudi, and tamarind pulp. Add water. 

Boil on high for 7 minutes till the raw smell of the mensina pudi is gone. Add jaggery and salt and bring to boil again. 

Add curry leaves and Corainder leaves.

For seasoning, heat ghee in a small pan. Splutter mustard seeds and very little hing. 

Add to saaru and stir and cover immediately. Serve hot.

This should make 4 cups of saaru.

You can vary the jaggery to taste. 


Recipe courtesy: Ratna Rao (via Dailysamayal)

Saarina podi / Mensina Podi

Ingredients:

Coriander seeds (Dhaniya)       : 2 cups

Broken red chillies                     : 2 cups

Jeera (Cumin)                            : 3 tsp

Mustard seeds                           : 2 tsp

Methi seeds (Fenugreek)           : 1 tsp

Pepper corns                             : 1 tsp

Hing (Asafoetida)                       : a little

Preparation Method:

Dry roast dhaniya in a hot pan till they splutter and turn golden brown.

Add red chillies and roast for a short time. Pour into a wide basin.

Dry roast other ingredients except Hing. Add them to the basin. Add hing.

Wait for the ingredients to cool to room temperature. Grind to very fine powder in a mixer-grinder. Store mensina pudi in an air-tight bottle.

We use it as masala for saaru, gojju and even potato curry.

We get two kinds of red chillies, the non-spicy byadagi and the spicy guntur. I like to use a combination of both of these.

Recipe Courtesy: Ratna Rao (Via Dailysamayal)

Menthyada Gojju

Ingredients:

For Basic Gojju

Fenugreek (Methi seeds)              : 1 tblsp

Tamarind pulp                                 :  from lemon sized tamarind

Rasam powder/ mensina pudi       : 1 tsp (recipe here)

Jaggery                                            :  a large piece

Water                                                :  2 cups

Salt to taste

For powder:

Chana dal ( bengal gram)               : 1 tsp

Udad dal (black gram)                    : 1 tsp

Jeera (Cumin)                                 : ½ tsp

Fenugreek/ Methi                            : ½ tsp

Pepper                                             : 1 tsp

Til (Sesame seeds)                         : 2 tsp

Copra (dry coconut) grated            : 2 table spoons

For seasoning:

Curry Leaves

Asafoetida

Chana dal

Mustard seeds

Red chillies - 2

Oil

Preparation Method:

Soak tamarind in hot water and extract pulp. 

Take a fresh pan and in a little oil fry chana dal, urad dal, jeera, methi, pepper and til. Grind with copra to fine powder. This is for flavour.

Fry methi seeds in oil till a nice golden brown, add tamarind pulp, water and jaggery and bring to boil. Turn flame to simmer, add salt and rasam powder and allow cooking on a slow flame.

Add ground masala to the gojju. Stir well. When it has cooked for a short time, turn off flame. Remember, Gojju thickens when it begins to cool.

Take a large pan and heat two ladles of oil. Splutter mustard seeds, fry chana dal, hing, chillies and karipatta. Add seasoning to gojju. Serve menthyada gojju as a side dish or dip. This has a reasonable shelf life and preserves well in the fridge.

Recipe courtesy: Ratna Rao (via Dailysamayal)