Kattu Thanni / Kollu Chaaru / Horsegram Soup

When I shared a recipe of making Kollu thokku, I made a note to save the water after cooking the horsegram in a pressure cooker. Today What you are going to see is some fat burning soup made using that water with tamarind, small onions, spice powders and coconut.

I have tasted my mom’s Horsegram soup (Katti Thanni as she calls it) which was quite simple. She just adds salt, pepper and serve hot.  If needed, she adds crushed cumin seeds. Couple of months ago, My mom showed me a recipe of same soup(Kattu Thanni) with different variation from a Chef Dhamu’s cookbook. She also wrote the recipe down and passed me the paper to try here at my home and that is the one what your seeing it here now.

Basic Information:

Preparation time: 10 minutes

Cooking Time: 10 minutes

Serves : 4

Ingredients:

Kollu / Horse gram / Kaanam – 1/2 cup

Water – 2 cups + 1 cup

Tamarind – a lemon size ball

Small onion / Shallots/ Chinna vengayam – 1/2 cup

Turmeric powder – 1/8 teaspoon

Red chilli powder – 2 teaspoons

Coriander powder – 2 teaspoons

Salt – to taste

Fresh coconut – 2 tablespoons, grated

Method:

1) Wash and soak the kollu for 15 minutes. Soak tamarind in 1 cup of warm water.

2) Pressure cook the horse gram for 4 to 5 whistles by adding 2 cups of water. Cooking time varies depends upon the horse gram.

3) Wait for the steam releases from the pressure cooker and drain the water completely from it. Use the kollu for making this thokku or sundal.

4) Squeeze and extract the juice from tamarind and discard any pulp.

5) Take the drained water in a sauce pan or deep pan. Add the tamarind water.

6) Add small onions.

7) Add red chilli powder, coriander powder, turmeric powder and salt to taste. Taste and adjust the water level only if required. Bring to a nice boil.

8) Add 2 tablespoons of grated coconut when the water is boiling and small onions become tender.

9) After a minute adding the grated coconut, turn the flame off.

10) Have this as soup or as a accompaniment for rice along with this thokku. We had it with Saamai rice.

Notes:

1) Use whole shallots without cuting them and you can skip coconut if you don’t prefer them.

2) Adjust the red chilli level as per your taste and adjust water quantity if needed.