Small Brown Garbanzos Rasam:

Have you ever tried this way…after done cooking the legumes like garbanzos or kidney beans, used the legumes cooked water in other recipes? One of the famous infusion…where I come from is Mookadalai Rasam. Back home, they precisely use small brown garbanzos for this recipe. It sure adds a distinct flavor to the regular rasam…very earthly.

Ingredients:

Small, brown garbanzos 1 cup
Tamarind – lemon size
Garlic 1 whole head
Dry red chilies 5
Peppercorns 1 spoon
Cumin seeds 1 spoon
Turmeric powder 1/4 spoon
Salt
Mustard seeds 1/2 spoon
Cumin seeds 1/4 spoon
Asafoetida 1/4 spoon
Curry leaves few
Oil few spoons.

Method:

Soak the legumes overnight, and cook the same next day.

You have choice now…you can either use the whole legumes and its cooked water in whipping this recipe or you could use up the legumes for an other recipe and use the ‘cooked water’ for this rasam!

Roast the peppercorns and cumin together and coarsely grind them, set aside.

Extract thick milk out of the tamarind and set aside as well.

Now, in a wide vessel…heat oil. Add mustard, cumin, asafoetida and curry leaves. Wait till they pop and splutter.

Add crushed garlic (yes, along with skin) and crushed chilies (stalks removed, probably you knew)…wait till they turn aromatic.

Now, add salt and turmeric to the same. Further add legumes cooked water plus tamarind extract. There you go…almost done.

Set this over medium heat…watch carefully, remove it from heat…just before they start to boil. Oh yeah…they have some specific significance…Moms are always right about it. The rasam turns out fabulous.

Serve steaming hot with plain steamed rice, comfort meal to the millions:)

Experiment yourself and let me know about it.