Thirikadugam Rasam | Herbal Soup / Rasam

A couple of months back, we paid a visit to my grandparents place. After catching up with the family stuffs, I wandered around the house. The backyard always reminds me of my childhood where I used to spend my vacations with my cousin. The coconut trees, the hibiscus plants and other trees really makes me nostalgic.

So while going around the backyard, I noticed some herbs put out to dry. One of them was totally new to me and asked my grandpa what it was. He explained that it was ‘Thippili‘. I dutifully clicked a pic and packed a handful of it .

He had actually dried different types of herbs to make a digestive powder called ‘Ashtachurana‘, which , as the name suggests, is made of 8 ingredients.One of the ingredient is this ‘thippili‘ .

So after lunch while we were relaxing, I picked up a Tamil newspaper and found a rasam recipe – Thrirkdugam rasam. I read that recipe and found that thippili was one of the ingredients and I made sure to take that paper with me.

After all these months, it suddenly dawned to me that I can make this for this week’s blogging Marathon theme – Traditional recipes.


Until a few decade ago, herbs played an important part in the diet. a lot of them were used on a daily basis and this not only promoted the well being but also was a sort of preventive medicine.

Then when processed foods started coming in and there was lesser time to cook food at home and not enough knowledge about the importance of herbs in our diet lead to them being almost forgotten.

Then there comes the time when many realized it was better to spend on these herbs which have become more and more expensive than spend that money on treatment.

More and more people are turning towards herbs and spices to add flavor to their meal and also keep diseases at bay.

So this rasam was something that was in vogue a few centuries back and is being revived now…

Sukku , Milagu and Thippili are called thiri or Three and Kadugam means Medicine. So from the name itself it is obvious that this rasam is full of medicinal properties.

Thippili is Long Peppers [Piper Longum] which is also known by the name Indian Long Pepper.Sukku is dry ginger and milagu is pepper corns.

This rasam is said to have prevent a lot of diseases and the people who consumed this rasam regularly led a healthy life.

I used:

Horsegram / Kollu – 1/2 cup
Tomato- 1, ripe, blanched and pureed
Dry Ginger – 1 ” piece
Black Peppercorns – 1 teaspoon
Long pepper / Thippili – 4 numbers
Turmeric powder – a pinch
Tamarind – Gooseberry sized ball
Asafoetida powder- a large pinch
Salt to taste

Coriander leaves to garnish

1. Soak the tamarind in hot water and keep aside.
2. Pressure cook horsegram with enough water till mushy. Mash and keep aside. Do not drain the excess water.
3. Dry roast the long pepper for a couple of minutes and grind to a fine powder along with black peppercorns and dry ginger.
4. Make an extract from the soaked tamarind and bring to boil along with salt, turmeric powder,asafoetida powder,tomato puree.Simmer.
5. The mashed horsegram would have settled at the bottom and there will be the soup separately.Add this to the tamarind extract.
6. Add the spice powder and check the taste.Add water if needed.
7. Simmer for another 2-3 minutes and remove from heat,serve garnished with coriander leaves. 

Note:

• After adding the powder simmer for 2-3 minutes only. After that the taste will change.
• You can also season it with mustard, cumin seeds and curry leaves .Use ghee for seasoning.
• The mashed horse gram can be seasoned with mustard, urad dal, channa dal, curry leaves [in oil] and salt and it can be served with steamed rice.

Take a look at the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM#27

 

Logo courtesy : Preeti

Bon Appetit…