Rasam powder / Rasappodi

Rasam Powder

Red Chillies (Guntur)                        : 250 gms
Dhaniya seeds                                  : 500 gms
Tur Dal                                              : 150 gms

Pepper                                              : 30 gms
Jeera                                                 : 50 gms
Turmeric                                            : 5 to 6 pieces ( or you can use 4 tbsp powder)

Dry in Hot Sun for a few hours and grind to a coarse powder.

Arusuvai Natarajan's recipe for rasam powder:

Dideer rasam

(you can make it in smaller quantity. Keep the proportion)

Tur dal – 500 g

pepper – 250 g

jeera – 200 g

hing 100 g

chillies – 300 g

Daniya – 750 g

Turmeric Powder – 50 g

Curry leaves – a fistful

Order of frying ( light fry)

Pepper

Tur dal

Red chillies – broken

Curry leaves.

Jeera

Prior to all this fry hing in oil and add while grinding. Grind to a coarse powder.

For 4 cups rasam:

Add 3 cups water to  a handful of boiled dal. 

Extract pulp of tamarind and add enough water to make it into one cup of liquid.

Add this to the dal.

add 2 ½ tsp rasam powder, enough salt.

Bring to boil.

Heat Ghee and add mustard seeds. Pour it over the rasam once the seeds splutter.

Garnish with Coriander leaves.

Do try. You will love it.

Another Method:
Shimoga Shantamma's recipe

Rasam Powder 

Ingredients:        

    Dried Chillies (byadege) broken into small bits – 3 pavs. This is a tricky measure to describe if you have never seen a pav in life . and the accuracy of measurement makes all the difference to taste. 
 Dhaniya seeds                                 1 ¼ to 1 ½ pav

Curry leaves                                     enough to fill both palms held together in a cup shape.In a little oil fry these together till all the ingredients are crisp. You should be able to break the curry leaves and the chillies. Keep aside.  
Take a piece of dried turmeric and fry it in a little oil. Keep aside. 

Jeera                                              1 tbs
Pepper                                           1 tbsp  
 Mustard                                         1 tbsp
Methi seeds                                    1 tbsp
Fry the above in very little oil.

  

 Channa dal                                    2 tbsp

 Urad dal                                         2 tbsp.

Fry the above in a little oil till golden brown. Powder , cool and store in an airtight container.

Vazhakkai podi

Ingredients:
Big raw plantains                       2
Tur dal                                       2 Tablespoons
Urad dal                                    1 Tablespoon
Red chillies                                5
Oil                                              1 Tsp
Asafoetida                                  /4 tsp
Salt                                            To taste

Method:
Mature, firm, raw plantains work best for this recipe.
Roast the raw plantains on direct flame ( Gas, coal) till their skin is completely black. Let it cool, remove skin and in a vessel crumble the flesh inside.
Fry tur dal, urad dal and red chillies in oil, Add hing and salt and grind into a coarse powder in a mixer.
Add crumbled plantains and pulse for a few more seconds till they mix well with the spice powder.
Vazakkai Podi is ready.
Serve with hot rice and ghee or gingelly(Sesame) oil. Vathal kuzambu or Milagu kuzambu is a great accompaniment along with fried appalam/pappadam.

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. 

Idli milagaipodi

Ingredients:

Urad dal                            : 1 cup
Channa dal                       : 1 cup
Red chillies                       : 1 cup (broken)
Sesame seeds (Til)           : 2 tblsp
Jaggery                             : 2 tblsp (powdered)
Salt

Preparation Method:

Fry urad dal and channa dal separately in a little oil. Fry red chillies taking care not to brown them. Dry fry seasame seeds till they pop.
Cool.
Grind together with salt and jaggery powder . you can omit jaggery powder if you dont like your milagaipodi to have sweetness.


In case you have excess coconut in the house, you can fry 1/2 cup grated coconut and add it to the podi. In  this case, you can omit sesame seeds and jaggery,

Sambar Podi

Sambar Powder
(Arusuvai Natarajan's recipe:) 

Tur dal – 500 g
Channa dal – 500 g
Daniya – 750 gm
Red chillies – 250 g
fenugreek – 25 gm 2 tbsp
hing – 50 g

In a little oil fry asafoetida first, then  methi seeds, channa dal and tur dal in the same order till they turn golden brown. Then fry the chillies till they give out  anice aroma. Dont brown them. Finally fry the dhaniya seeds.


Cool and grind to a coarse powder.

The following recipe is given  by N.Geetha . It is from her grandmother's kitchen:      

Red Chillies (Guntur)                        : 500 gms
Dhaniya seeds                                  : 250 gms
Tur Dal                                              : 150 gms
Urad dal                                            : 50 gms
Pepper                                              : 30 gms
Methi/ fenugreek seeds                    : 2 handfuls
Turmeric                                            : 5 to 6 pieces ( or you can use 4 tbsp powder)

Dry them in hot Sun if you are in India. If outside you can microwave them for a minute before powdering.
Grind to a fine powder.
Use 2 Teaspoons powder and half cup boiled dal to make Sambar for 4 people 

Kariveppilai Podi

Ingredients :
Curry leaves      : 3 handfuls
Peppercorns      : 10-12
Urad Dal            : 2 tsp
Channa Dal       : 2 tsp
Asafoetida         : a few pinches
Salt

Procedure :
Wash curry leaves and drain. In a hot kadhai, separately toast the urad dal and channa dal till they turn light brown.
Toss the curry leaves in the kadhai till water evaporates. Powder the toasted dals, curry leaves, salt,pepper and asafoetida.

Recipe Courtesy: Mrs Santha (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)