Comments on: Zucchini Pappu or Zucchini Daal

By: Anjali J.

Anjali J. — Thu, 01 May 2008 11:52:35 +0000

Hey thanks for leaving such nice comments madhuram, i loved this dal very much, should try it once.. Being a vegetarian, i always search recipes in ur website. U have got a huge and good collection of vegetarian recipes.

By: Madhuram

Madhuram — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 02:05:19 +0000

Anjali, don’t tell sorry and all. I’m glad that you are interested in what I’m telling and interacting with me. Traditionally rasam is prepared in the following method:
1. Pressure cook toor dal. (toor dal, little turmeric powder and hing)
2. On stove top in a saucepan add tamarind extract, diced tomatoes, water, rasam powder, turmeric powder, hing and salt. This has to be boiled nicely.
3. To this add the cooked toor dal and boil it for another 3-5 minutes.
4. Temper little mustard seeds, cumin and curry leaves and add it to the rasam and garnish with cilantro.

So in most of the south indian families they would have a big cooker, so that they can cook rice, dal and vegetables in 3 seperate vessels in that cooker itself at one go.

Actually what I do is I follow my mother’s easy version of making rasam. She will add tamarind extract, tomatoes, 2-3 tablespoons of toor dal, and other things I have mentioned above in one utensil and will pressure cook it along with the rice. So both rasam and rice will be ready at once. So instead of adding diced tomatoes I add 3-4 tablespoons of the crushed tomatoes and prepare the rasam and leave the cooker for 3 whistles.

Hope this helps. Do get back to me if you have any further questions.

By: Madhuram

Madhuram — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 02:03:37 +0000

Yes Dee, I did miss your comments for the past couple of days. Glad that you are back. I’ll check yours too.

By: Madhuram

Madhuram — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 02:02:50 +0000

Anila thanks for trying the recipe. Hope you liked it. Laksh did mention about your zucchini experience. Sorry about it. In my case the zucchinis were not crunchy after baking it for 15 minutes, so I was increasing the time 2-3 minutes and kept checking on it and finally got the desired crunch around 23 minutes. Either I would have dipped my zucchinis in too much yogurt and bread crumbs so it has taken such a long time to cook or you have coated it very little and it got burnt I guess. I’m sure that it would work fine in a toaster oven too. Regarding the temperature, I think we have to find out this by trial and error method only, since I’m also a novice baker. Hope this helps.

By: Madhuram

Madhuram — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 01:55:27 +0000

Thanks DK, try it and let me know how it came out. I’m still searching for a good mexican recipe to participate in your event.

By: Dee

Dee — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 01:14:24 +0000

Hey Madhu, missed quite some stuff on ur blog!! Yes, even I make zucchini dal but use split moong dal instead!! the recipe is on my blog Dont use sambhar powder though.. I shud try urs too

By: Anila

Anila — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 01:07:29 +0000

I made it today. It came out quite well. Thanks for sharing the recipe. I want to ask you something about the baked zucchinis.I tried it but it got burnt.After i preheat the oven to 425 degree,should it be turned off.isn’t 425 a high temp.won’t 350 be enough.is it required to bake the zucchinis for 20 minutes.Also can i use a toaster oven for the same.

By: Anjali Damerla

Anjali Damerla — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 21:58:46 +0000

Madhuram,

I thought that for tomato rasam you need to pressure cook the tomatoes along with tamarind, etc. So if using crushed tomatoes then what do you do? Do you still pressure cook them? Sorry for asking a silly question.
Anjali

By: DK

DK — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 21:31:39 +0000

This seems to be a v good idea will sure give it a try!

By: Madhuram

Madhuram — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 17:34:09 +0000

Thank you very much Arundathi, Kamala, Cham, Laksh, Roma, Uma, Divya, Kaykat and Rajitha.

SS and Anjali, I was also using only fresh tomatoes earlier. Once I saw an episode in Food TV, where the host Ellie Krieger in Healthy Appetite was mentioning that canned tomatoes have more lycopene then fresh ones. So I started using canned ones in soups and stews. The minenstrone soup tasted so good using canned diced tomatoes, so I started experimenting canned tomato puree, paste etc in other dishes too.

SS you have to try crushed tomatoes for Rasam, the taste is so good. I have tried a couple of brands and all taste the same, so I go with the cheapest one. But when my husband shops he gets only the famous brand, this time he got Hunters. Earlier I used to buy 2-3 bags of tomatoes in Produce Junction, now it’s just only one bag.