Paruppu Urundai Rasam

From my paati's kitchen

Paruppu urundai rasam

Ingredients

For paruppu urundais or dhal balls 

Thuvaram paruppu/ Thoor dhal         3/4 cup

Red chillies                                         2 nos

Asafoetida powder                          2 pinches

For rasam

Tamarind/ tamarind paste     1 big lemon sized / 2tsps

Sambhar powder/ rasam powder     1.5 tsps

Asafoetida powder                        1 pinch

To powder for rasam

Thoor dhal                               1/2 tsp

Dhaniya (coriander seeds).       1 tsp

Red chillies                                1 nos

To temper

Ghee                                          1 tsp

Mustard seeds                            1/2 tsp

Method

1.) Soak thoor dhal/ thuvaram paruppu for 20 mins. 

2.) Soak tamarind in warm water to make a very watery tamarind syrup. If u have paste, dissolve it in 4-5 cups of warm water.

3.) Grind thoor dhal, red chillies, with asafoetida powder roughly without adding or just sprinkling water to a consistency ( dough) which is easy for us to make it into small balls (I know what you're thinking!! :D) . 

4.) Add tamarind syrup, asafoetida powder, sambhar/ rasam powder and salt to a large wide mouthed saucepan and let it come to a rolling boil in med- high heat.

5.) Simultaneously make small balls out of the ground thoor dhal dough and keep it aside.

Paruppu urundais/ Dhal balls 

6.) When rasam comes to a rolling boil, lower the heat to medium and add the balls one by one not exceeding 4 at a time ( if there are too many, they hit each other and break while boiling) if it is a considerable sized saucepan. 

7.) Let it boil. DO NOT STIR! If stirred, the balls break.  It takes 10 - 12 mins for the balls to boil and come to the top. Until then let it do its own job. 

Paruppu urundais coming to a float

8.) When the balls come to the top and remain at the top for about a minute, take the first batch fully out onto a plate and keep it aside and then add the second batch in.  Repeat the process. When in process, if the rasam level reches to a point where the balls cannot float to the top, add water and let the level rise to a point where u think that the balls can float. Then let it keep simmering.

9.) Simultaneously dry roast the ingredients to be powdered and powder it and keep. 

Dry roasted ingredients

10.) When all the balls are done cooking and are out, add them all in again.

11.) Mix the ground powder in a cup of water, lower the stove heat to medium low and add it and mix well. As the balls have cooked already, they will not break. Let the rasam froth in medium low heat. 

12.) Heat a small stir fry pan. Add ghee and mustard seeds to splutter. Add it to rasam to temper it. 

Slurp! Slurrrrrrrppppp! Rasam :)

Piping hot spicy slurpy paruppu urundai rasam is ready and goes very well with rice and potato fry or drumstick vengaya kari. 

My experiements with brown rice - Epilogue

Part 1, Part 2


Not to drag on for much longer, I am trying and finding out brown rice to be more and more versatile  every day. It is proving great for thokku saadhams ( mangaai thokku saadham ( mango thokku rice) and nellikkai thokku saadham ( Indian Gooseberry thokku rice) are simply astounding!). Avakkai rice, thogayal rice (mint thogayal, coconut thogayal, peerkangai thogayal)  everything tastes  great!  Brown rice upma tastes great too.

The reason for me for writing this elaborate write-up (for some might have been boring too) was to say that brown rice is a very tasty option that is very healthy too. There might be people at different points in life for whom brown rice becomes compulsion than a choice. I have heard many say eating brown rice is an unfortunate circumstance, many placing brown rice inferior , many sniping it to be "healthy". I do not know why it has got such a reputation. But from my side, I would like to get the word around that brown rice is a superb gifted option, often surpassing the taste of its white counterpart and we all can gladly make a shift. Yes, it takes a few times before we cook the rice perfectly! But even the trial times are not bad! So happy Brown ricing!!!

My experiments with brown rice - Part 2

Epilogue, Part 1


Having bought the Sona-masoori version, I wanted to cook our regular South Indian meal. Rice with sambhar, rasam, kari (veggies !! not meat. I am a veggie), kootu, thayir pachadi. 

Brown Sona Masoori Rice

I am very used to quinoa.  So I guessed brown rice should be great with sambhar like quinoa and will make awesome sambhar saadham ( sambhar rice) . I was skeptical about rasam saadham ( rasam rice) and had good hopes on thayir saadham ( curd/yoghurt rice). Before seeing how it turned out, I want to narrate my experiences on cooking the rice, its texture and everything in that department.

Cooking brown rice is a bit different is what I would say. It needs more water and more cooking time as the husk is partially left on the grain, it has a tough coat. Thus the cooked rice is not as soft or spongy as white rice, but a bit tough(not uncooked) and rubbery. When you pressure cook, it is more soft, but still not as soft as white rice. It definitely has a different texture. This works great for basmathi rice as I use it only for making pulav and fried rice varieties. For south Indian dishes, I strictly use ponni raw/ sona masoori as I feel basmathi's flavour mightily clashes with sambhar, rasam or for the matter of fact any south indian stew/soup to give it a weird unoriginal taste. Okay, coming back to basmathi rice, white or brown, I cook it in a saucepan or electric cooker. The pulavs and fried rice just taste out of the world aided by the texture and the effect ghee and black pepper ( for fried rice) has over brown rice. 

I was a lot skeptical when thinking about south indian food though. The recipes call for the rice to be a lot more soft ( but not mushy). I put great faith in pressure cooking the rice, added more water had it in for 3-4 whistles and 10 mins on low heat before switching off when cooked along with toor dhal and other stuff in separate containers. Yes, it turned out a lot lot softer but still a bit rubbery. For sambar rice, it tasted great as expected, better than its white rice counterpart. When had as sambar rice, even the texture difference was not detectable. Rasam rice sucked :( . Curd rice had a very different unappealing look as I was used to the bright white color spongy buttery melting madness, it was brown-white, clearly textured, never melting but great tasting curd rice. Taste Wise we can never find fault but looks are sub-normal. Coming to the conclusion that looks don't matter as long as it tastes good, I started cooking brown rice on the days I made just sambar and on the days I made rasam, I had it with white rice. My husband, still said that brown rice with rasam is good too and I know that he has pretty high standards for taste. But I couldn't accept. The earthy taste clashed with rasam and kind of overpowered it for me. The rubbery texture of the rice was a rasam repellent!! That made things worse. 

What made sambhar cohesive but rasam to repel?? DHAL!! Yes! Dhal was the answer to solve a problem like Maria!!! That Was my EUREKA moment! The next day, I made some rasam. I mixed rice with dhal and ghee  as we do for the kids and then had rasam on top of it and I was in a state of trance until I finished a plateful and again I went for another serving.  And thus our family's marriage to brown rice happened and we are living happily ever after! 

My experiments with brown rice - Part 1

Part 2,  Epilogue

Brown Basmathi rice

                   

I wanted to write this post for a long time now. But, whenever I wanted sit down to write, I never had enough time to complete it. When I once had the time and typed this encyclopedic lengthy write-up and was about to post it from my ipad to blogger, there was some bug in the app. I couldn't post it and lost the whole 2.5 hour long typed content too😡😡😡😡😡 I was mighty frustrated to retype and post it again. Now that I am on a 10 hour long flight and is bored beyond a point that even typing for this write-up sounds like I am sitting on top of  Jungfrau and enjoying the scenery, I have  started it again. So this is the prologue for a write-up that is going  be so long that I might put off some. 

So brown rice.... I never knew anything much about it until dec 2013, when my family visited us. One of them was recently diagnosed diabetic and so brown rice was a must. My sil went and bought it with my husband in the nearby Indian grocery shop. Kohinoor brown basmathi... This was the one that we were cooking along with white rice. When they left, I inherited around 2kgs of it , not knowing what to do with so much of  it and not wanting to waste, I decided to give it to my friend. Having tried puli saadham ( tamarind rice) with it, when they were visiting and finding it to be great and more flavorful than its white rice counterpart ( excluding the aroma of basmathi rice in puli saadham which I hate) , my experimental self  gave me a little nudge. So I dropped the idea of giving and started thinking about trying different dishes with it.  And so began my journey, into the unexpectedly cherishing world of brown rice. 

Having found that brown rice has its own unique flavor to it, I guessed it would stand on its own and decided to try JEERA PULAV with it first. Oh and to my glee, how it tasted?! Bliss!!! Then I went on to try PEAS PULAV, VEGETABLE PULAV with various combos of vegetables and every single one of it just far exceeded its white counterpart. I had always heard that brown rice just doesn't taste as good as white rice and somehow was placed as the kind of inferior variety in terms of taste and the consideration it got and was somewhat given the status as grain for diabetic and/or weight loss-healthy-not tasty-not optional for these kind of situations. But for me, it was totally baffling with the results that I was getting. I was sure shot certain that I would permanently be replacing white basmathi after my final experiment. There is one more test that it should pass! VEG FRIED RICE!! And it blew the roof and set its scale at the dizzying astronomical heights! 

All of these happened within a week and having next to nothing funda, I was very eager to know about brown rice. For the brief time I knew it, I always thought of brown rice as a separate variety of rice. Brown in colour, it has miraculous nutrient spectrum and health benefits. Digging superficially, I found out it is nothing but un-milled rice. With the husk only partially removed, it gets its color and the additional unique earthy flavour that I adore. So its nothing but white rice with its light-brown husk-coat! Doesn't this sound cool?! Un-milled,  it is nature putting its best food forward for our consumption. Rich in fibre, minerals and what-not with nature's fully packed goodness, it has far less glycemic load on the body when consumed. 

Armed with the new found information, My always hyper brain, made an assumption that there should be a brown rice counterpart for every variety of rice available. This assumption increased my drive to find out about what is available in the market. For that, the info from my friend who lives in mid-west proved invaluable when she shared with me that she got a bag of Sona-masoori rice from her grocery shop in Milwaukee. Being a South Indian my excitement broke boundaries. I just searched till I found a bag and was never this excited to cook, being a bored cook, that I am! 

I have decided to break this write-up to multiple posts looking at the length to which it is getting into. So let's continue my experimental journey on the next post.