Education Recipe For Better Life: Lemon Rasam

For the letter L,I was clueless as there is no Tamil ingredients except Lavangam.One of my friend suggested to make Lehiyam.But some of the ingredients are not in stock in my pantry so changed to make something with lemon.Finalised to make lemon sevai with ready made rice noodles.Couple of days before,I boiled the water and added the rice noodles,covered it.As the noodles needs to remain in the hot water for 10 minutes.But I forgot to put off the flame,and left the kitchen,the noodles cooked mushy and ended up in making payasam.
At last landed in Lemon rasam,a simple comforting food.This is our family's favorite and make it often.Never thought of sharing it in blog and finally did it for today's post.
We have been following this recipe since years, as this rasam doesn't require tamarind it appears in our kitchen during the summer time.
For this specific rasam we don't use garlic and rasam powder.My mom uses pepper,cumin and sambar powder.Also the addition of green chillies makes this rasam more flavorful.Off to the recipe......

Lemon Rasam

Basic Information

Preparation time 15 minutes
Cooking time 6-7 minutes

Serves 3

Ingredients

Ingredient	Quantity
Toamto	2 (medium size)
Toor dhla/thuvaram paruppu	2 tbs
Lemon juice/yelumichai saaru	2-2.5 tbs
Sambar powder	1/2-3/4 tsp
Turmeric powder/manjal podi	1/4 tsp
Salt	1.5 tsp
Oil	1 tbs
Curry leaves/karivepillai	few leaves
Coriander leaves/kothamalli	roughly chopped

To grind coarsely

Ingredient	Quantity
Cumin seeds/jeeragam	1.5 tsp
Pepper/milagu	1 tsp
Green chilly/pachamilagai	1-2

For the tempering

Ingredient	Quantity
Mustard seeds/kadugu	1/2 tsp
Fenugreek seeds/vendhayam	a pinch
Asafoetida/perungayam	a pinch
Dried red chilly/varamilagai	1(broken)

Method

Cook the toor dhal in a pressure cooker for 4-5 whistles with enough water.After cooking mash the dhal with 1/2 cup of water and keep it aside.Grind the given ingredients to a coarse powder.If the tomatoes are not soft and mushy,pulse it in a blender and keep it aside.
In a bowl take the crushed or blended tomatoes and to this add the ground cumin,pepper and green chillies .Then add in the sambar powder,tumeric powder and salt.Add the toor dhal water and coriander leaves.

Now heat the pan with oil and splutter the mustard seeds and fenugreek seeds,then goes in the asafoetida and red chilly.Add the prepared mixture,let it cook for one boil in a medium flame.

Put off the flame and add the lemon juice to it,sprinkle some chopped coriander leaves.Transfer it to a bowl and cover it with a lid immediately.

Serve it with white rice and potato fry along with pappad.

The amount of lemon juice is personal preference,I used 2.5 tbs to get a nice taste..
If you want to add garlic,crush 2 cloves of garlic and add it while the rasam is boiling.
The lemon juice needs to be added after put off the flame.The lemon juice should not boil otherwise the rasam will be bitter.
While serving the rasam mix it well and serve.