Kathirikkai rasavangi is a very common preparation in lot of South Indian household. If you want a change from the regular sambhar, this is a great option. I love this for the fact that this recipe is loaded with the vegetable. I generally like my sambhar or kuzhambu to have lot of vegetable in it. By lot I mean the quantity of the vegetable. So this is one of my favorite dishes that I make very often at home.
Most of my South Indian recipes are my mother’s recipe, but there are few out there that I make from other sources as well. This recipe is from the famous cook book ‘Cook and See’ (Samaithu par) by Meenakshi Ammal. I am very fond of her recipes and her cook books are my go to source when my mother in unavailable to answer my doubts and questions. When I got married and came to USA, her three volumes of cook book were my only source of cooking. Her recipes are very close to our everyday homemade recipes in taste and flavors.
When I enrolled for the BM theme, cooking from a cookbook, I thought I have to begin by making something from my ever popular and most used cook book first. This is sort of a Thank you note to my favorite cook book author, Meenakshi Ammal. Cooking from a cook book theme is a wonderful way to let the world know of recipes from cook book that we cook. I am big fan of cook books and I have so many of them that I had a hard to choose where to begin. Thanks to Srivalli to include this in the BM theme. For the next three days, you would see my recipes that I cook using a cook book.
Preparation time – 10 mins
Cooking time – 40 mins
Difficulty level – easy
Ingredients to make Kathirikkai Rasavangi – serves 6
- Eggplant/Brinjal – 3 or about 1 ½ lbs (I used the long thin ones)
- Thuvaram paruppu/red gram dhal – ¾ cup uncooked
- Tamarind – a small piece (as big as an areca nut)
- Turmeric powder – 1 tsp
- Curry leaves – few
- Asafetida – ¼ tsp
- Salt – to taste
- Oil – 2 tsp
- Cilantro – for garnish
Fry together and grind into powder –
- Kadalai Paruppu /chana dal – 2 tsp
- Coriander seeds – 2 tsp
- Red chilies – 4
- Coconut (grated) – ⅓ cup
For seasoning –
- Oil – 1 tsp
- Mustard seeds – 1 tsp
- Ullutham paruppu/Urad dal – 1 ½ tsp
Procedure to make Kathirikkai Rasavangi –
- Cook the thuvaram paruppu in enough water until soft and mushy and keep aside.
- Soak the tamarind in hot water for few minutes and extract the juice from the tamarind. Squeeze the extract by adding water for about 3 times and keep the water separately.
- Fry all the ingredients listed above and grind into a coarse powder. Keep aside.
- Cut the eggplants into 1 inch chunks. Heat oil and add the eggplant chunks and scald it for few minutes until the eggplants start changing color.
- Now add the extracted tamarind water to the eggplant. Make sure that the water covers the vegetable.
- Add salt and turmeric powder and let it boil until the vegetable is cooked well.
- Now add the ground powder and cooked Paruppu and mix well. Also add the asafetida and curry leaves and let the mixture come to a boil.
- Season the cooked rasavangi with mustard seeds and urad dal and serve hot with rice.
- I served the Kathirikkai Rasavangi over hot rice with spicy potato curry on the side.
Rajani S says
I also like Samaithu paar, but just wish they would release a copy with a better presentation of ingredients and method. Else, its a huge repository of traditional recipes!
The rasavangi looks nice and it pairs well with the potato fry 🙂
Nalini's Kitchen says
Such a flavorful curry,very tempting.I am great fan of Meenakshi Ammal Cook books...
Pavani says
I recently tried this dish and loved it. Yours looks delicious.
sushma says
Such a quick and tasty dish.
Priya says
I can die for this stew, my all time favourite, very tempting.
Shylaashree says
it is tempting sandhya
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divya says
look absolutely tempting !! Gorgeous
Harini-Jaya Rupanagudi says
A very tempting platter. My mom makes rasavangi and is probably one of her favs. Owing to allergies, I avoid eggplant and so this is out of my realm!
Savitha Ganesan says
New dish to me.I bet it tasted awsome with potatoes.
Srivalli says
Looks very inviting...I love rasavangi..
Aruna Manikandan says
flavorful and delicious gravy,love it with hot idli's
Saraswathi Tharagaram says
Love this authentic gravy..Super combo with potato fry..Yum.
Pinksocks says
The paste for the brinjals looks very inviting. I dont remember eating it ever this way 🙂 Good one.
Gayathri Kumar says
I need to try this once. Your recipe looks good and thanks for sharing...
Chef Mireille says
I am not an eggplant fan so I would use a different vegetable but it does look tasty
Foodiliciousnan says
Books that we refer to when we start cooking can be so previous, right? I love to prepare rasavangi but am not a Brinjal person so I take put all the pieces and eat 🙂
Foodiliciousnan says
I love to prepare rasavangi but I don't like brinjal so I pick out the pieces while eating 🙂 I'm sure yours was delightful
Julie says
looks mouthwatering n delicious!!