Watermelon Rasam Darboosani Rasam

For the 23rd day and the 23rd alphabet W, I am sharing the Watermelon (Darboosani) Rasam recipe. We all know about pineapple rasam, and this rasam is pretty much similar to the pineapple rasam, and I am replacing it with watermelon. The critical thing in this rasam is to adjust the quantity of rasam powder based on the watermelon’s sweetness. I struggled with the recipe starting with D. I have already posted about dosa, so I wanted to try something different. My friend JV suggested this recipe, and I was contemplating if I should post it under D or W. But I tried Dindigul Thalappakatti biryani for D, and that went under D, and here is the W post. The history, or rather I should say the history behind the man who created this recipe, was fascinating. This rasam is one of Mountbatten Mani Iyer’s popular recipes, and he is famous for his catering services; and he is based out of Mylapore, Chennai. Our friend JV was showing me one of his cookery shows, and this recipe was very intriguing, and my love towards rasam made to try it right away, and then I realized I got the recipe for W. :-)

The original recipe calls for rasam powder and red chili powder to compensate for the watermelon’s sweetness. And the recipe used only cooked toor dal water, not the toor dal itself. But I added more rasam powder, skipped red chili powder, and added toor dal and toor dal water. Traditionally they use katti perungayam or solid hing instead of the powdered one, but I went with powdered one.

How to make watermelon rasam

Prep-Work:

Wash and pressure cook the toor dal with water and turmeric powder. Once it’s cool down mash it well and set aside. Puree the water melon and extract about 1.5 cups of juice. Strain and filter the juice.

Mix the tamarind paste with 1 cup of water and set aside. If you are using tamarind, soak a small gooseberry sized tamarind in water for half an hour and extract the juice.

Steps:

In heavy bottomed pan or vessel/patram, add the tamarind extract, rasam powder, pepper powder, salt, turmeric powder and hing. Mix well.

Now heat this in medium flame and let it simmer. Once it starts to simmer, add the cilantro and curry leaves and let it simmer again. Now add the filtered water melon juice and let it simmer again.

Then finally add the cooked and mashed toor dal and let it simmer. Once the froth forms, turn of the heat.

In a separate tadka pan, add ghee. Once the ghee is hot, add the cumin seeds and mustard seeds. As they start to splutter, add it to the rasam.

That’s it. Yummy watermelon rasam is ready. Serve hot with rice and poriyal.

Recipe Notes:

Instead of mashed toor dal, toor dal water can be used too. Also depending upon the sweetness of watermelon juice, adjust the rasam powder. If required add ½ tsp of chili powder. Adjust the spices and salt according to your taste preference.

PS: If you try this watermelon rasam, please don’t forget to comment and rate this recipe. If you have any questions, please leave a comment, and I will get to it ASAP. Make sure to follow me on my Pinterest for more healthy and delicious ideas! Follow me on Instagram or join my Facebook Group for more gardening and recipe updates! You can also sign-up for my newsletter for weekly updates.