Rasam a la Vijayam Athai

Always ready for a giggle!

Vijayam Athai is my dad’s oldest sister…I adore her, love her to pieces, and have the most fights and arguments with her. I tease her relentlessly and love to play pranks on her via telephone.   My dad has three sisters all of whom I love.  This post is about the oldest. Athai means father’s sister and mine are so splendid – they inspire me to be a really good one to my nephews.

Vijayam will come over to spend the day – saying I’m too old – don’t expect me to do anything – she’s 75 or maybe more – she’ll land up, have coffee – have you had your tea yet, no athai – here i’ll make tea with jaggery for you – she enters the kitchen – ofcourse in a few seconds she has the lay of the land…lights the stove starts boiling water – what are you making for lunch? Athai, I thought I would make…no no no! I know! why don’t we make etc etc etc – infact you don’t know how to make it do you, I’ll make it and you can learn.  And after that we can make etc etc etc for tiffin by the time Meera comes home.

By the end of the day, she would have cut all my vegetables, cooked every meal, made batter for the week, taught me 2 dishes, dried and put away the dishes and she’ll leave saying ‘such a good girl – how well you looked after me’.

Is it possible to not love her?

One day I was about to set the cooker with arhar dal for a rasam…the rice was already made and my energy efficient athai stopped me in my tracks. Why do you want to set the cooker again? Is gas free? Are you Tata- Birla’s daughter? An oft used phrase by my family elders to all those born after 1970 – which makes us suspect that perhaps there were some nefarious links – ooh!]

But I want to have paruppu rasam – you can – you don’t need to cook it first. Really? yes and so she proceeded to:

• soak a Table spoon of arhar/toor dal and 2 red chillies in a bowl of water
  

  Prepping for Rasam with simple flavours

• cut some tomatoes, julienne some ginger
• slit a green chilli
• wash some fresh corriander
• dry roast 1 tbs of corriander, 1 tsp of jeera/cumin and a few peppercorns
• Ten minutes later she made a fine paste of the soaked dal, red chillies and roasted spices.
  Then set the tomatoes, ginger and green chilli to boil in a little water – added salt and turmeric.Once the tomatoes cook, the paste is added, ‘keep stirring or the dal will stick to the bottom and burn’ [ of course I wasn't stirring - just sitting on the counter and watching her] ‘don’t be in a hurry to add water, the raw smell of the dal has to go first’.The raw smell ‘went’ and a beautiful fragrance filled my kitchen – now we add water about 2 -3 cups, wait for it to start simmering gently – do not let it boil – just little bubbles – add the corriander leaves and switch if off.Temper with a little mustard and jeera spluttered in hot ghee.

  VARIATION:
  You can puree the tomatoes, ginger, green chilli, and corriander too into a fine paste. Once this paste cooks, add the ground dal and spice mix. ‘This way, no one will keep the corriander leaves to the side of the plate – its very good for health’.

  

  One hot meal!

  Eat with hot rice or the grain of your choice, veggies and crisps on the side.

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