Betel Leaves Rasam / Vetrilai Rasam

Happy Monday Everyone! After 2 days of total fun, followed by complete rest, I am back to blogging with a handful of healthy recipes. If time permits, I will be posting them this week one by one. First entry of this week is Betel leaves rasam. It is almost similar to the rasam what we prepare at home, but at the end, I added chopped betel leaves.

It is a very simple way of including health properties of betel leaves into your daily menu and hope you don’t throw the betel leaves hereafter. The recipe is from supplementary book of aval vikadan. But I have seen a similar recipe from Nag’s site. You can follow any of these which ever is convenient to you.

Basic Information:

Preparation Time: 20 minutes

Cooking Time: 10 minutes

Serves: 4-5

Ingredients:

For Rasam:

Tamarind – a lemon size ball

Tomato – 1 no, small size

Betel leaves – 4 nos, chopped,

Curry leaves – 1 string

Turmeric powder – 1/4 teaspoon

Salt – to taste

Asafoetida – a big pinch

For Rasam Powder(Masala):

Garlic cloves – 2 nos, large size

Whole black pepper – 1/2 teaspoon

Cumin seeds – 1/2 teaspoon

Green chilli – 1 no

Curry leaves – 1 string

For Seasoning:

Oil – 2 teaspoon

Mustard seeds and urad dal – 1/2 teaspoon

Method:

1) Soak tamarind in a cup of warm water for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes, squeeze out the juice from it. Cut the tomato into four and mash it using your hand. Add it to the tamarind water. Add roughly torn curry leaves.

2) Make a coarse powder of the ingredients given under the rasam masala.

3) Add the crushed coarse powder to the tamarind, tomato mixture.

4) Add turmeric powder and salt. Mix well and immediately heat it in the stove. Taste and adjust salt. If required, add more water according to the sourness of the tamarind. I added 3-4 cups of water including the water used for soaking the tamarind.

5) When foam starts forming at the top of the rasam, add asafoetida.

6) Add betel leaves, when rasam starts boiling.

7) Let it boil for 2 seconds and turn the flame off.

8) Heat oil in the seasoning pan. Add mustard seeds and urad when it is hot. Once the mustard seeds splutters well, add it to the rasam.

9) Betel leaves rasam is ready to be served with hot steamed rice.

Notes:

1) Use only mid range betel leaves. It should not be too young / too matured.

2) Remove the stem of the betel leaves before adding to the rasam.