Pachaipuli Rasam / Raw Tamarind Soup

 This was an authentic dish to our kongu region. I like this rasam a lot. This rasam is prepared without cooking .

 Puli means tamarind in Tamil , pachai means raw , it also refers to green color. Here , pachai refers to raw , as this rasam is not cooked.

This rasam is usually made to accompany the rice pongal – without dal , rice is cooked fully and was easily mashable. This pongal is made in temple festivals and also during pongal festival – Harvest festival of Tamil nadu.

 For this rice pongal , Green gram dhal and pachaipuli rasam are the best combo sides.

Last Friday , for our native temple festival , amma prepared this pongal. I thought I didn’t post my favorite rasam in my blog.

So , once prepared this rasam within 10 minutes.

Hand is the main kitchen aid used in preparing this rasam. This rasam is an ancient recipe which comes through generations. It is a delicious rasam with the raw smell of shallots , garlic ,chilli and tamarind. While typing i was drooling about the rasam………

 I think enough of this introduction… Lets move on to the recipe.

Requirements :

Tamarind – a lemon size / 2 tbs if paste is used

Shallots – 6

Garlic – 2 cloves

Green chilli – 2

Curry leaves – a sprig

Cumin – ¼ tsp

Salt as required

Water – 3 cup

Method :

Wash and soak the tamarind in 2 cup of water.

Chop the shallots , garlic , curry leaves and chilli into fine pieces.

With the hand crush the soaked tamarind to extract the juice and drain with the hand without skin and seeds.

If using the tamarind paste , juste mix the paste with the water.

Add the chopped shallots , chillies , garlic, cumin seeds and curry leaves to the tamarind extract and crush with the hand for 5 minutes.

Add in the salt and remaining water and adjust according to the taste.

Pachaipuli rasam is ready to serve.

Serve with rice pongal / plain rice.