Homemade Rasam Powder
Easy traditional Rasam powder. A family recipe from a Tamil kitchen using coriander seeds, dry red chili, cumin, pepper, thoor dal, channa dal, curry leaves, asafoetida. Make rasam varieties like spicy tomato rasam, pineapple rasam, mango rasam, lemon rasam.
Servings: 4 cups
Ingredients
- 200 gms Dhania seeds/ Coriander seeds ( 500 gms )
- 200 gms Dry Red Chilies (without stalks) (500 gms)
- 10 gms Thowaram Paruppu/ Toor Dal Pigeon pea lentils- ¾ tablespoon (2tbsp)
- 10 grams Kadalai Paruppu/ Channa dal/ Bengal gram lentil - ¾ tablespoon (2tbsp)
- 7 grams Milagu/ Kali Mirch/ Black peppercorns - ¾ tablespoon (2 tbsp)
- 5 grams Jeera/ Cumin seeds - ½ tablespoon (1 tbsp)
- 1 gram Hing/ Asafoetida - ½ teaspoon (1 tsp)
- 1 sprig Curry leaves (dried or fresh) 1 large handful
- 6 grams Mustard -½ tablespoon (1 tablespoon)
- 1 gram Haldi/ Turmeric powder - ½ teaspoon (1 teaspoon)
Instructions
One Day Before You Make Rasam Powder:
- Take whole spices and condiments (sabut), dry them as in step 2 below and then follow the process.
- If you have access to a sunny balcony or terrace, spread the ingredients separately on clean sheets of plastic or newspaper, for at least one day, letting them soak in the sun. Remove before the sun goes down and the air becomes chill. Check the ingredients for small stones, sticks etc. Remove the stalks from the red chilies.
Roasting The Ingredients:
- Heat a suitable pan, and dry roast each type of ingredients separately for a few minutes on low to medium flame, taking each one to separate dry dish after roasting and allowing them to cool before grinding. No oil is to be added for roasting.
- Roast the Coriander seeds for about 3 minutes, stirring frequently.
- Pepper is to be roasted for 1 minute, again on low flame.Mustard to be roasted for 30 seconds.The lentils/ dals should be sautéed together on a low flame for less than a minute, till they darken slightly. Watch out while doing this as they can quickly burn and char to black.
- The dry red chilies need to be roasted for 3 minutes, stirring frequently. They will give a pungent aroma while being roasted. I prefer to wear a close fitting mask while doing this, washing my hands and face with soap and water after handling the chilies for removing stalks or for roasting or grinding them.
- The jeera/ cumin seeds should be roasted for only about 30 seconds and removed before they begin to blacken. Curry leaves, if fresh, to be roasted for 2-3 minutes till most of the moisture has been removed.The turmeric powder is to be sautéed dry for a few seconds, and I do this last, after all the other items have been roasted, along with hing/ asafoetida powder.
Grinding/ Powdering The Ingredients
- Once the roasted ingredients have cooled, you need to grind them. Coarse grinding is sufficient, except for the chilies, as per instructions below:
- Grind the coriander seeds first. Add the dals/ lentils and grind.Add all the other ingredients except for the red chilies, and grind to a coarse powder. Remove from the mixer/ processor, mix well with a dry spatula or spoon, and keep aside.
- Grind the red chilies as fine as you can get them. Remove from processor.
To Mix Rasam Powder Spice Mix
- Note: Please read the post above for this recipe, for What special Care is to be taken for Making The Powder. This will explain the proportion of Chili powder to Coriander and other spice mix. For dry red chilies that are of medium spice/heat, the following proportion is recommended. For more pungent varieties, the chili powder volumes are to be reduced.Mix equal quantities of the red chili powder and the coriander-spices mixed powder. Mix well so that all the spices blend together completely.
- The rasam powder is used for making rasam varieties such as Tomato Rasam, Pineapple Rasam, Neem flower Rasam etc. For recipes, please see the post above.
