Chef's Recipe for Tomato Soup

I got this recipe from a website. A chef had posted this recipe. I have made it several times and has always been a hit.

Ingredients:

Ripe tomatoes - 8
Carrot - 1
Garlic - 4-5 cloves
Salt - to taste
Sugar - 1 tsp
Fresh Cilantro leaves - for garnishing
Rasam powder - 1/5 teaspoon.
Water

Method:

1. Pressure cook tomatoes, carrots and garlic with 2 cups of water.

2. When done allow to cool. Peel the tomatoes. (Do not throw away the water in which tomatoes/carrot/garlic were cooked). Remember to remove all the skin from the tomatoes.

3. Blend the tomatoes, cooked carrots and garlic in a mixie. Add about 1 and a 1/2 cups of water that was saved from the pressure cooked tomatoes and grind. When done, pour the blanched liquid mixture through a sieve, into a vessel.

4. Bring this liquid to boil in medium flame. Add 1 tsp sugar, salt, rasam powder and finely chopped cilantro leaves when the mixture begins to boil. Stir it a couple of times. May need to add 1/2 cup or more water depending on the consistency you want.

5. Allow to boil. (Do not over boil as it will spoil the taste and flavour). Boil for about 30 seconds. Remove from fire. Garnish with fried bread pieces just before serving(and/or one small butter cube). Sprinkle salt/pepper if you want.

No need to add corn flour.

The above quantity will serve 5.

Tip On Making Payasam/Kheer

Adding evaporated milk to payasams makes it very tasty and rich. Evaporated milk does not have sugar unlike condensed milk which is loaded with sugar. Make payasam the usual way. Add evaporated milk in the end. Evaporated milk is not thick. So adding it to payasam may make it watery. So reduce the milk quantity while preparing payasam.

Uppadam

Uppadam is an easy to make kootan/kozhambu , which will not take more than 10 minutes. This a very traditional recipe and and it is almost forgotten now. My amma used to prepare this. So I have acquired a taste for this. Any stir fried vegetable will go well with uppadam. Its almost an instant dish provided you have the basic curry powder in hand. This curry powder is the main ingredient for pulikuthi upperi (A kerala iyer speciality). In most homes, this powder is always kept handy. This curry powder takes only 3 ingredients

Curry powder

Raw rice - 1/2 cup
Red chilly - 2 Nos
Methi seeds - 1/4 tspn

Wash and dry the rice. Dry roast the rice and chilly. When the rice starts turning little borwn, add methi seeds. Methi gets burnt easily. So add it at the last stage. When cool, powder it in a mixer. It need not be too fine. This is an all purpose curry powder. You can add this for any vegetable stir fry/kootu. This acts as a thickening agent too becoz of the rice in it.

Coming to the main recipe, you need

Tamarind - small lemon size
bhindi - 5 Nos
Salt to taste
Turmeric - a pinch
Green chilly - 3 nos

Cut the bhindi of 1/2inch size.
Soak the tamrind in warm water and extract the juice. Add 1/2 cup water to it. Take a vessel. Add the tamarind extract, turmeric and salt.

When it starts to boil, add the chopped bhindis to it. Slit the green chillies and add. Cover and cook.

When the bhindis are cooked, take 3 tblspoon of curry powder and mix in water without forming lumps. Stir into the tamrind gravy. Add more water if required. The gravy consistency should be something in between rasam and sambhar. Bring to boil.

Season with mustard and curry leaves.

Enjoy a simple meal with hot rice and any vegetable prepared as thoran.