Nellikai Rasam | Amla Rasam | Gooseberry Rasam

Nellikai Rasam | Amla Rasam | Gooseberry Rasam, a healthy, mildly spicy and tangy treat for our taste buds. Nellikai (Amla / Gooseberry) is so healthy and nutrition rich. In this tasty rasam, Nellikai (Amla / Gooseberry) are cooked along with tomato, pepper-cumin and other Indian spices, making this rasam simply superb. Doing Tomato Rasam and also sometimes lemon rasam is conventional for many of us. But sometimes we get bored of the regular food. Thats when our innovation and discovery skills gets freshen up.

My elder daughter loves rasam and hence I would make many different version of rasam like Brinjal rasam, Drumstick rasam, onion rasam and also some of the healthier rasam like Kandanthipili rasam, pepper rasam etc. You can see my collection of Rasam Varieties in this link. Like Kandanthipili rasam which is very good in curing body ache, pepper rasam in curing cold/congestion, this Nellikai (Goosebery/Amla) rasam is a healthy variation to the regular rasam.

Gooseberry has lots of medicinal values in it. For maintaining blackness of hair, volume of hair our elders advice us to include Amla in our daily diet. The moment we think about gooseberry our tongue starts to drool. I used to bite raw gooseberry, though initially we feel the tanginess, and later if we sip water, the after taste of gooseberry would be so sweet. Conventionally Gooseberry pickle is one of the traditional pickle variety. We can make spicy or sour version of the gooseberry pickle. Also Nellikai pachadi is also one of the traditional food which is served with Poricha Kuzhambu.

With the natural tanginess of the gooseberry, we don’t need tamarind for this rasam. Gooseberry are de-seeded and ground along with green chili and ginger and then cooked with tomato along with pepper-cumin powder to make this mouth-watering Nellikai Rasam. Now lets see the video version of making this rasam!

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Recipe Card for Nellikai Rasam | Amla Rasam | Gooseberry Rasam:

Nellikai Rasam | Gooseberry Rasam | Amla Rasam Recipe

Nellikai (Gooseberry / Amla) Rasam, a mouth-watering rasam made with amla along with other Rasam spices. The sourness of amla and tomato is enough for the tangy flavor of rasam. We don't need to use tamarind for this rasam. Can be served as a soup or can be relished with hot steaming rice along with a teaspoon of ghee.

Course Rasam

Cuisine Indian, Tamilnadu

Prep Time 10 minutes

Cook Time 20 minutes

Total Time 30 minutes

Servings people

Calories 70kcal

Author Sowmya Venkatachalam

Equipment

Mixer Grinder
Sauce Pan
Heavy Bottomed Pan

Ingredients

5-6 nos Gooseberry
1 Green Chilli
2 inch Ginger
1 Tomato Chopped
2 tbsp Toor Dal
2 tsp Peppercorns
1 tsp Cumin Seeds
Asafoetida (Asafetida / Hing) a Pinch
Salt To Taste
0.25 tsp Turmeric Powder
Coriander Leaves Few

For Tempering

2 tsp Ghee (Clarified butter)
1 tsp Mustard Seeds
1 broken Red Chili
Curry Leaves Few

Instructions

Cooking Dal

Take Toor dal in a vessel. Add pinch of turmeric along with a cup of water and pressure cook dal till soft and mushy. Mash the cooked dal and set it aside.

De-Seeding Process

Wash gooseberry thoroughly. We can see vertical lines running in every gooseberry. Using a knife slice each lines and take out the seed. Repeat the same process for the rest of the gooseberry.

Grinding Process

Take the de-seeded gooseberry in a mixer jar along with green chili, ginger and grind it to a paste.
Next take peppercorns, cumin seeds and grind it to powder and set it aside.

Tempering Process

Heat ghee in a pan. Add mustard seeds and allow it to sputter. Next, add broken red chili, curry leaves, pepper-cumin powder and hing (asafoetida). Also add chopped tomato.

Cooking Rasam

Add water and cook the tomato. Once the tomato is cooked, add gooseberry paste. Also add turmeric, salt, 1 cup of water and keep flame in low and allow the rasam to boil for 5 mins.
Finally add cooked dal and mix well. Adjust the consistency by adding water. Keep the rasam in flame till a frothy layer forms on top of the rasam. Garnish with Coriander Leaves and switch off the flame.