A blog about healthy eating and living. Mostly Indian, all vegetarian

You are here: Home / Traditional South Indian dishes / Rasam, Kuzhambu and Sambar / Pomegranate Rasam

Pomegranate Rasam

by

We are rasam lovers in my home. The Tomato Paruppu Rasam is, of course, an all-time favorite but we (read Girish, who is THE Rasam aficionado) love to experiment with garnishes, mix-ins, and the main ingredients .

Garlic rasam, ginger rasam, lemon rasam, pineapple rasam all some common varieties and it’s interesting to add seasonal produce as long as it is tangy and can complement the tamarind or even substitute the sourness. Think raw blueberries, gooseberry (amla), raw mango –  the humble rasam is a light soupy broth made by boiling a sour, sometimes lightly sweet ingredient with some spices and garnished with fragrant herbs.

And so when I chanced upon this flurry of “how to peel a pomegranate easily” on Instagram, I bought the largest pomegranates I could find at Trader Joe’s (my favorite store).  So it was raining pomegranates for a few days. They weren’t too sweet and quite tangy, possibly still at the beginning of the season here. Hence THE Rasam critic’s great idea to add it to tonight’s dinner. This is now a new rasam favorite of ours. Slightly sweet, tangy and a whole lot of pomegranate goodness!

You can experiment with this recipe further. Add it to a pepper-cumin slurry to make it like a pomegranate milagu (pepper) rasam or make it more like a paruppu rasam which is how I tried it today.


Pomegranate Rasam
 
Save Print
Prep time
Cook time
Total time
 
A tangy and slightly sweet soupy rasam (soup) that is bursting with the flavors of pomegranate.
Author:
Cuisine: South Indian
Serves: 3 cups
Ingredients
  • 1 cup pomegranate arils
  • ¼ cup boiled toor dal
  • 2 tsp tamrind paste; or tamarind pulp from 1 small lemon sized tamarind
  • A pinch jaggery (optional)
  • A pinch tumeric powder
  • 2 tbsp rasam powder
  • 2 green chilies slit
  • 2 tbsp cilantro chopped
  • salt to taste
  • For tadka or garnish:
  • 1 tbsp ghee
  • ½ tsp mustard seeds
  • ½ tsp cumin seeds
  • ½ tsp pepper
  • 4-5 curry leaves
Instructions
  1. Mix about 1 cup water to the boiled toor dal and mix well.
  2. Take this mixture in a heavy bottomed vessel (I use a vessel made of an alloy of metals called iyya chombu).
  3. Add the tamarind paste, green chilies, rasam powder and a pinch of jaggery.
  4. Let this boil until the raw smell of rasam powder goes away.
  5. In the meantime, puree the pomegranate seeds with ½ cup of water in a blender. Strain the mixture to get pomegranate juice.
  6. Add the pomegranate juice to the boiled turn dal mixture in the vessel.
  7. Let it boil for another minute and take this off the heat.
  8. Make the tadka by heating ghee and adding the tadka ingredients to the hot ghee. Wait for the mustard seeds to splutter and then add this to the rasam mixture.
  9. Garnish with chopped cilantro.
  10. Serve with hot rice or millet with a dollop of ghee.