Bassaru Palya :

Now, what is bassaru? The literal transition of bassaru is Basida (drained) saru (Curry) in the Kannada language.  Here, we cook the legumes or dals and the choice of greens or veggies in an open vessel with little more water than the required amount to cook. When the cooking process ends, drain the water (stock) and use it for gravy by adding ground masala. Cooked veggies would turn into the dry curry with added seasoning. They are usually served with Ragi Mudde (finger millet balls) or Rice, topped with ghee with chopped onions or papads as an add-on. Bassaru is a staple affair in Bangalore, Mysore, Mandya, Hassan, Kolar, Tumkur region of Karnataka.

Bassaru Can be prepared using either Toor dal, Sprouted green gram, soaked black eye peas (karamani or Alasandekalu) or Sprouted horse gram etc. for protein ( also as a thickening agent to the curry)

If you prefer Greens, you can use the choice of greens except for fenugreek or Methi leaves.

If you don’t prefer greens, you can opt for any veggies such as French Beans, Ridge gourd, Cabbage etc.

Bassaru can be prepared in various ways, and each family has their method. Here, I am sharing how I make it and relish our Mudde Oota.

Ingredients for Saru:

Black eye bean – 1 cup (overnight soaked)

Chopped greens – 1 bowl

Salt

Green chillies – 4 to 5

Onion – ½ (chopped)

Garlic – 5 – 8

Curry leaves – 4 leaves

Coriander – 1 tsp

Cumin – ½ tsp

Coriander leaves – 1 tablespoon (chopped)

Coconut – 1 tablespoon

Tamarind – 1 tsp

For seasoning:

Oil – 1 tbl spoon

Mustard – 1tsp

Onion – ½ (chopped)

Curry leaves – 1 spring

Method:

-Take one vessel, cook soaked bean. When it is half done, add chopped greens, salt and a pinch of jaggery (it is purely optional) and cook further.

-When beans and greens are perfectly cooked and done, drain the stock, collect the water and keep it ready. (take out one serving spoon of cooked legume to grind the masala).

-At first, we would prepare the masala.

-First, heat 1 tsp of oil, add coriander, cumin, curry leaves, green chillies, onion, garlic and fry until onion becomes translucent. Switch off the gas. Add in chopped coriander, coconut, tamarind and mix everything.

-When fried content is cooled, grind it into a smooth paste by adding one serving spoon of cooked legume by adding a little water.

-Now, reserve little ground masala in the mixer jar ( to make palya) and proceed to make saru.

-Take one vessel, mix drained water/stock, ground masala, adjust the consistency, check for the salt, boil until it is frothy.

-Do seasoning, heat oil, splutter mustard, add curry leaves, chopped onion and fry until light brown. Add it to boiled bassaru.

Now we would see the procedure of palya:

-Take one tawa, heat oil, splutter mustard, add curry leaves, chunks of onion, fry until it is translucent. -Add reserved ground masala, fry for 2 minutes. Now, add cooked and drained legumes and greens.

-Check for the salt, seasoning, garnish with freshly grated coconut and mix everything and enjoy with ragi mudde or Rice.

Note:

-Please cook legumes or dals in an open cooking method. Don’t use the pressure cooker. It indeed makes it mushier and soggier.

 

Jackfruit seeds Rasam:

Jack seeds Rasam, perfect for rainy weather. It is a nutritious, authentic way to soothe our souls.

Traditionally, we use freshly roasted and ground masala to prepare the jack seed Rasam. Here, I took a shortcut method to ease my work, without affecting the outcome.

I usually keep the jack seed in my freezer, and the procedure is here. Other than that, I have a couple of other jack seed recipes in my blog. One is jack seed with Bamboo shoot, and another one is with Mangalore cucumber; both are our traditional recipes. Other than that, I have tried and shared jack seed Hummus, which is tasty, creamy and delicious.

Now, let us see the procedure of Rasam. It hardly needs any ingredients. A fistful of jack seeds and Rasam powder creates the magic.

Ingredients:

Jack seeds – 10 -15

Green chillies – 1 or 2

Rasam powder – 1 to 2 tbl spoons

Coconut – 1 to 2 tablespoons

Tamarind – small gooseberry size

Hing – ¼ tsp

Salt – to taste

Jaggery – to taste

Seasoning:

Coconut Oil – 1 tsp, Mustard – 1 tsp, red chilli – 1, curry leaves – 1 spring.

Method:

– Here, I add a little more seeds than the required amount. I like to retain those seeds in the rasam to enjoy the creaminess.

-Cook a fistful of jack seeds in an open vessel or cooker for one whistle. Peel the outer skin ( pink in colour)

-Take one serving spoon of cooked seeds, Rasam powder, coconut and grind into a smooth paste.

-Now take remaining cooked jack seeds with water, salt, jaggery, slit green chillies, hing and boil for 5 minutes.

– Add ground paste, tamarind pulp, adjust the consistency, boil well. Add seasoning and enjoy with hot rice and some papad.

 

 

 

Wild mango Rasam :

Kadu Mavinahannina saru: is a traditional delicacy of coastal Karnataka, which is a must during mango season. We have several recipes of wild mangoes in the coastal region, and each has its charm and taste. Some varieties are sour and fibrous, and some are sweet and juicy; some mangos do not have much pulp. According to their types, their usage also varies 😉

If tiny wild mangoes are sour, not so sweet, and fibrous, they go into the cooked form of saru / Beyisida gojju.  In this way, we can enhance the taste by adding additional jaggery and enjoy even the sourest mangoes.

Sigh!! These are all nostalgic memories for me. Here, In Bangalore, I do manage to cook all these varieties by using tiny mango, which is also known as Sakkara gutti or Sugar baby 😀

The recipe is simple and goes like this –

Ingredients:

Wild mangos / tiny mangos – 6

Green chillies – 2

Jaggery

Salt

Method:

-Clean the mangoes, remove the peel, put it in the vessel containing half a cup of water, squeeze and collect mango pulp; repeat the process until skin sheds all the pulps.

-Now, take mangoes, squeezed the water into a vessel. Add salt, crush two green chillies by using your hand ( it indeed a vital part to enhance the taste), jaggery ( little more),  1 tbsp of grated fresh coconut and boil until mango cooks. 

-Adjust the water content according to your taste. -Season it with Coconut oil, mustard,  red chilli and curry leaves. Serve with hot rice.

Bilimbi Saaru /Tree Sorrel Rasam :

Bimbuli / Beempuli, anyone? Yes! It is our local name to Bilimbi 😀
Averrhoa bilimbi, commonly known as Bilimbi, “Cucumber tree”, “tree sorrel”, is a tiny, tangy, juicy fruit that regularly appears in Coastal Karnataka cuisine.

Bimbuli is what we call it, and it is also known as Tree sorrel. It is a common backyard tree, and you would find it in every house of the coastal region. The beauty of our traditional cuisine is impressive. When we take only Mangalore cuisine, we find at least 6 to 7 varieties of souring agents used for specific purposes according to the ingredient and the recipe. For example, Kokum, tamarind, Monkey jack (known as Unde Huli or Kethe Huli), Hog plum, Bilimbi (beempuli), Raw mango and the list goes on.

Before the lockdown, I found this in my locality during our evening walk and introduced it to my daughter.

We used to eat this watery fruit by dipping it in salt and asked her to eat it with salt. She, who is fond of any khatta/ souring agent, enjoyed and asked for more. Besides eating, I loved pickle, which my paternal aunt used to prepare and get it.

While talking, remembering good old memories, my mother in law mentioned Bimpuli saaru, which her mom-in-law used to prepare. As a curious learner, I started asking her about the recipe? How did she use to make etc.?

As always, she said, what is the recipe? There is nothing in that saru—a little bit of cooked dal, green chilli and hing.

The next day, I made the saru, which I never tasted before, and it was indeed flavourful and delicious and thought of documenting it in my blog for future reference.

 Ingredients:

Bilimbi /Tree sorrel – 6 to 7 or acc to your taste

Cooked toor dal – 1 small Katori

Salt

Jaggery – to taste

Green chillies – 6 to 8 (slit)

Hing – peanut size

Seasoning:

Coconut oil – 1 tbl sp

Mustard – 1 tsp

Red chilli -1

Curry leaves – 1 spring

Method:

-Take a one cooking pot, put Chopped tree sorrel, slit green chillies, salt, jaggery, hing, 2 cups of water as well as cooked, mashed dal.

-When chillies and sliced tree sorrels are cooked, adjust the consistency by adding water, if necessary, salt, jaggery or hing. Boil a couple of minutes more and add seasoning.

-To season, heat oil, splutter mustard, red chilli and curry leaves. Yes! It is so simple and tasty.

-This tasty saru is pairs well with hot rice and papad with any vegetable side dish to accompany.

 

Massoppu by using Anne Soppu / Water spinach:

Massoppu is nothing but mashed greens with cooked lentils, which is the staple food of Bangalore- Mysore region and is an excellent accompaniment with either Ragi balls or rice. Usually Massoppu is prepared with mixed greens, which is available throughout the year.

We all know the fact that leafy greens are source of iron, calcium, vitamins, antioxidants and fibre and it is the best gift of nature.  Apart from the regular greens we sometimes find unique, seasonal, never seen greens with local soppu/ green vendors in the early morning hours, when they visit our locality. Only few people know the usage of local, seasonal edible greens which was consumed in rural India for centuries. These super foods are sold only in the hand pushed carts in our cities and sadly not at all available in modern super stores.

 Anne soppu comes under such category. After staying in Bangalore for 20 long years I had never seen this green and when I came across it this last week, asked my soppu vendor. He said, it is Anne soppu and is very tasty. Then comes my right hand, house help who grew up in rural Bangalore and knows every green which grows locally. She said, not only is it tasty, but also very nutritious.

According to her, Anne soppu grows wild, like a weed in between paddy or Finger millet/ Ragi fields during monsoon. It has long, arrow shaped leaves and crunchy, hollow stem which breaks very easily, while bending. It is known as Water spinach in English and Kalmi saag in West Bengal. Here is her recipe, which I made and relished and dedicating this post of mine to her.

How I proceeded with is –

Ingredients:

Toor dal – 1 cup

Anne soppu – 4 small bundles

Onion – 1

Garlic- 1 whole

Green chillies – 5 to 6

Tomatoes – 4

salt

For Seasoning –

Oil / ghee – 1 table spoon

Mustard – 1 tsp

Cumin – 1 tsp

Hing – ¼ tsp

Red chilli – 2

Curry leaves – 1 string

Method:

-Greens are like this-

-Clean the greens by discarding thick stem portions by hand.

-Wash and keep aside.

-Wash toor dal, chop onions, tomatoes.

-Take one pressure cooker, shift washed dal and pour water till just above the dal.

-Now place tomatoes, green chillies, onion, garlic, washed greens, salt and cook for 2 to 3 whistles.

-When pressure relieves, churn roughly in a hand blender or hand-held churner.

-Adjust the consistency of dal by adding water and adjust the salt and boil once.

 

-Now do seasoning by heating oil or ghee, splutter mustard, cumin, hing, red chilli and curry leaves and pour over boiled dal.

-Enjoy with hot rice and raw onions or with any sort of papads or tawa fries like me 😊

 

 

 

 

 

Punarpuli Saaru aka Kokum Rasam:

To start with this wonder fruit, I should introduce its plant, benefit, procedure to preserve the outer skin, to rest of the world. Kokum is belonging to Guttiferae family, same as mangosteen and its botanical name is Garcinia Indica, is a fruit bearing plant only found in western Ghats and coastal southern India.

 (pic source : From, Vidya lakshmi of SAHAJA FARMS ) 

It is a summer fruit, which is widely used for juices or Rasam in our region to quench thirst as well as to balance body heat. It has so many health benefits as well. It is a natural healer for acidity.

It is a ritual in our native to dry the outer skin in summer months to preserve to use whenever it is needed. Fresh fruit of Kokum is often halved, discard the inner pulpy white part which is a fleshy coating of real seed to make Kokum butter, which is used in medicinal as well as cosmetic products as a raw material. Then outer dark maroon skin will be sun dried and when it becomes crispy, it’s stored in an air tight manner. During this process, we used to prepare fresh pulp to make juice and I used to love fresh juice from its inner pulp. It is much tastier than the outer dried skin juice.

The seed kernels which are coated with white flesh (fruit) has oil content, which is solid at room temperature. When I was young, our grand mom used to prepare kokum butter from these seeds and it used to be like a wax ball and she always used to keep this ball in hand’s reach to treat any accidental burns (that time, cooking was much more tedious and burning episodes were very frequent, due to fire wood cooking). She used to hold the ball against the fire for 2 min, oil used to start dripping and she used to apply this over the wound. She used to say, in this way, healing is very fast, and it acts as a coolant on burning wound as well. I have one kokum butter ball with me, which she has prepared almost 20 years back and when my kids were small, Amma has handed this wonder medicine to me by saying, keep this ball for emergency and it is still with me as a souvenir. ( Seen in below picture)

In urban dwellings, it is sold as a dried rind, dark purple, little sticky and shiny with curved edges. If you infuse these dried skins in water, it releases very nice colour. If dried skin is darker, you will get darkish pink and if it is little old and turned black, your dish will become dark and pale in colour. Taste wise it is tangy like tamarind and used exactly like tamarind in cooking to give tart taste.

If you want to prepare Rasam you need hardly 7 to 8 dried rind or if you want to add to any curry, you need very less, hardly 2 or 3 rinds according to the requirement. It is usually used, without any chopping.

Thanks for reading, I appreciate your patience. Now we will see the procedure of our traditional recipe for simple Rasam by using dried rind or kokum concentration.

Ingredients:

Dried Kokum – 7 to 8 (If you are using kokum extract or pulp, use 2 to 3 table spoons)

Onion – 1 big

Red chilli powder – 1 to 2 tea spoons

Jaggery – As needed

Salt

Seasoning:

Coconut oil – 1 table spoon

Mustard- 1 tea spoon

Red chilli – 1

Garlic – 8 to 10

Curry leaves – 1 spring

Method:

-Soak kokum in sufficient water for 1 to 2 hours.

-When you boil, add sliced onion, red chilli powder, salt, jaggery (I prefer little sweetish Rasam, so usually I add little more)

-When onion cooks, do seasoning.

-heat oil, splutter mustard, red chilli, curry leaves and add crushed garlic.

-When garlic turns brown, add this to Rasam and close the lid for 2 minutes.

-Serve hot with rice or drink as an appetizer.

 

 

Simple Bele saaru /Rasam:

This Rasam is a very good option, if one has to cook no onion and no garlic meal. Usually it is an option for us during any festivity or “No mood to cook” meal. Olden days usage of onion or garlic was a taboo in our community and our grand moms used to prepare this kind of Rasam, which we call as saaru in local language. My hubby has fond memories attached to this Rasam, which he used to relish as a small child in his grand mom’s place and he usually asks for it and calls this Rasam as Doddajji saaru (grandma’s saaru) to signify. It is a plain Rasam, with ginger and hing flavour. In our region, we see this Rasam in some of the temple meals as well. If it is ginger flavoured one, no Rasam powder will be used and Rasam will be yellow in colour, due to the addition of turmeric and dhal.

DSC_0002_Fotor

Ingredients:

Toor dal – 1 cup

Tomatoes – 3 to 4

Green chillies – 4 to 6

Hing – peanut sized

Ginger – ½ inch (slivered)

Curry leaves – 2 springs

Salt

Jaggery – ½ to 1 tea spoon

Turmeric – ½ tea spoon

Tamarind – 1 tea spoon

Coriander leaves – little (optional)

Seasoning:

Coconut oil or ghee – 1 table spoon

Mustard – 1 tea spoon

Red chilli – 1

Curry leaves – 1 spring

Method:

-Wash and cook toor dal in a pressure cooker, mash a little and keep aside.

-Soak tamarind, chop tomatoes, green chillies and ginger.

Ribbet collage

-Take one Rasam pot (I normally use clay pot) and take 3 to 4 cups of water, tomato, green chillies, ginger, hing, curry leaves, turmeric, salt and jaggery.

-Cook this until everything cooks properly.

-Now add toor dal and mashed soaked tamarind.

-Boil this and adjust the consistency and check for salt, ginger and green chilli. If needed adjust by adding extra.

-When it is boiled, add chopped coriander leaves.

Ribbet collage 1

-Season with oil or ghee by spluttering mustard, red chilli and curry leaves.

-Serve with hot rice .