Tengapal Rasam – Watery Soup with Coconut Milk

TENGAPAL RASAM – Watery Soup with Coconut Milk

Rasam is an indispensable dish in the south Indian families. Many would have savoured the delicious rasams prepared in eeya chombu . The eeya chombu is a pot made of lead. Some say it is made of tin. My brother says it is an alloy**! Eeya chombus were an integral part of a bride’s trousseau. Ladies would treasure these vessels, and pass them on through generations like family heirloom! Rasam was typically prepared in these eeya chombus using the kumti which is small iron choolha that uses charcoal fire. One should know the technique and be careful while making rasam in an eeya chombu. It is not unusual (and very expensive!) to find new comers melting the rasam pot over their gas stove! If the pot is left on the fire unattended, it can simply melt in no time!

We hear a lot about lead poisoning and other metal toxins in recent times. But it is amazing to see the old people who used to eat food cooked in brass vessels plated with kalai or lead are still leading a healthy life. The use of brass and lead vessels have certainly declined after the advent of ever silver steel vessels. These in turn have become less popular after the nonstick items and glass vessels invaded the market. With all this evolution or revolution, I still have relatives who insist on having eeya chombu rasam.
Eeya chombu or not, here is a rasam with the unique flavour of coconut milk which will surely entice any rasam lover.

TENGAPAL RASAM

Ingredients

Three extracts of coconut milk from 2 cups of freshly grated coconut as described below.

Freshly ground rasam powder - as given below

Tur dal (Red Gram Dal)- ½ cup
Turmeric powder – 1 pinch
Tamarind – 1 small lime sized ball
Salt – 1 ½ tsp
Curry leaves – a few.
Tomato – 1 big
Coriander leaves – a few
Ghee – 1 tsp
Mustard seeds – ¼ tsp

Method to extract coconut milk:

a) Use 2 cups of freshly grated. Grind the fresh coconut gratings in as little water as smooth as possible. Use a strainer and squeeze the mixture to extract the milk. This is first and thickest extract.

b) Add more water and grind the coconut again and extract milk the second time. Keep this more dilute second extract separately.

c) Follow the same process and extract milk the third time, this will be really dilute with hardly any coconut milk left, but this will come into use as well.

For the Rasam Powder

Ingredients

Cooking oil – 1/4tsp

Coriander seeds – 2 tsp

Bengal gram dal – 2 tsp

Red chillies – 6

Pepper – 1 tsp

Cumin seeds -1 tsp

Asafoetida – 1 pinch
Method for Rasam Powder

1.Dry roast, pepper and cumin seeds.

2. Roast the rest of the ingredients in a drop of oil.

3. Make a smooth powder with all the roasted ingredients.

Method
1. Soak tamarind in water and leave it aside.
2. Pressure cook tur dal with a pinch of turmeric powder and water.
3. Extract the juice of tamarind.
4. Add the most dilute or the third extract of coconut milk to the tamarind juice.
5. Add salt and the rasam powder and boil until the raw smell disappears.
6. Add cooked dal, curry leaves and the second extract of coconut milk and boil vigorously.
7. Add chopped tomatoes.(Optional)
8. Finally, add the thickest or the first extract of coconut milk and decrease heat.
9. Add finely chopped coriander leaves and wait till the rasam foams.
10. Switch off flame before it starts boiling.
11. Season mustard seeds in a spoon of ghee.
Relish the coconut milk aroma as you slurp it down with hot rice.

Note: A thumb rule for tasty rasam is that it should never be boiled, as it spoils the flavours. It should be switched off, just as it foams rises to the top of the vessel, quite similar to milk. A tight lid should be used to immediately cover the rasam, to seal in the flavours.

This image below shows a long unused eeya chombu ; a kumti, which we took out from mothers attic, to take a photo for this post. As you can see my nephews even started a small fire in the kumti! We did not actually cook using these vessels, since they have been unused for a very long time! My sister-in-law still actively uses her eeya chombu, and has sent in the photo shown above in the recipe.
** Disclaimer: The authors of this site do not claim knowing about the metallic composition of eeya chombus, and neither the impact of using eeya chombus on health! A google search on eeya chombus reveals many aruguments on what is the metallic composition of eeya chombus! Some say its lead, some say its tin, others say it an alloy. One view says it was originally tin, but unscrupulous manufacturers sold pots adultrated with lead for several years, and therefore a common and wrong notion that it is lead!