Miriyala charu (Pepper rasam)

This is one of the light dishes which you can relish most ideally with rice... a traditional Andhra recipe. You can drink it like soup.... on a rainy day... or serve it hot for easing a runny nose. I got the recipe from my sister-in-law and I'm blogging it now.

And here is the source of curry leaves from my garden...

Ingredients:  

  For Charu/Soup:

• Tamarind - lemon size
• 2 Tomatoes
• 10 Garlic cloves
• 1/2 tsp Turmeric powder
• 1/2 tbsp Jaggery powder (brown sugar)
• Salt
• Curry leaves
• 4 to 6 cups water

 

For Charu Powder:

• 2 tbsp Toor daal
• 1 tbsp Pepper corn
• 1/2 tbsp Cumin/Jeera
• 1/2 tsp Methi/Fenugreek seeds
• 1 tbsp Coriander seeds (optional, not in picture)
• 2 dry red Chillies (optional, if you want more spicy rasam)

  
For Tadka/Tempering:

• 1/3 tsp Asafoetida
• 1 tsp Jeera
• 1/2 tsp Mustard seeds
• 2 dry Red chillies
• 1 tbsp Oil
•  Coriander leaves

Preparation:   

Soak tamarind in a bowl for 10 to 15 minutes.

Heat pan/kadai and add tool daal, pepper, jeera, methi seeds and coriander seeds (red chillies if required). Stir the ingredients on low heat until toor daal turns golden brown.

 Make a powder of the above ingredients and keep it aside.

 

Extract tamarind pulp by adding more water. Cut tomatoes and crush the garlic. 

 

Add cut tomateos and mash them with hands (riped tomatoes are better). Now add crushed garlic, turmeric powder, salt, jaggery powder, curry leaves and charu powder to the taramind water and mix well.

  

Let it boil for 10 minutes and add chopped coriander leaves at the end to preserve the aroma.

Now heat oil in a tadka pan and add mustard seeds. When they splutter, add jeera, red chillies, more curry leaves and stir for few seconds. Add asafeotida and turn off heat.

Add this to charu and mix well. Serve it hot with rice and appadam/papad.

Methi Paratha

Today I harvested Methi and Coriander leaves from my garden. What a joy to harvest coriander leaves... the fresh aroma combined with the serene morning breeze forced me to take long deep breaths. And being a Saturday morning, no worries to prepare food in a hurry... and I get more time to take snaps... while enjoying my early morning cooking to the tunes of FM.

Few snaps of today's harvest before jumping into the preparation of Methi Parathas...

Ingredients:  

• 4 cups whole Wheat flour/atta
• 2 cups Methi/Fenugreek leaves
• 1 tbsp Oil
• 1 or 2 Green chillies, finely chopped
• 1 inch Ginger
• 1 tsp Red Chilli powder
• 1/2 tsp Turmeric powder
• 1 tsp Coriander powder
• 2 tbsp Sesame seeds
• 1 tsp Jeera
• 1/4 tsp Ajwain/carom seeds
• Salt
• Few strands of Coriander leaves
• Ghee

Preparation:   

Rinse the methi leaves, drain them, chop finely and keep aside. 

In a mixing bowl, add wheat flour, all the powders, jeera, ajwain, chopped chillies and grated ginger. 

Add the chopped methi leaves, sesame seeds and chopped coriander leaves.

Mix everything with required amount of water and 1 tbsp oil to knead into a dough.

Make medium sized balls from the dough and roll into parathas.

On a hot tava or pan, place the paratha and flip when one side is partly cooked.

Spread Ghee on this side and flip again to apply ghee on the other side.

 Cook the paratha until you see brown spots.

Serve it hot with Peanut chutney. But kids have to wait until the parathas cool down a bit...

My kids were over excited and showered me with their kisses. Methi parathas made my day :-)