Kozhi Rasam

Kozhi(koli) - Chicken ; Rasam - Indian soup.

Rasam made of non veg items is not a common one. But this kind of rasam is prepared in Tamilnadu villages. They generally use a small chicken weighing 1/4 kg for a big family. But for a small family, just use the ribs or the drumsticks in the regular chicken. I prepared this during last winter and it was so good with piping hot rice.
It is a good remedy for body aches, cold, cough and for convalescent period.

Ingredients:
Chicken (with bones)- 100 gm
water - 5 cups
Tomato - 3 (200 gm)
turmeric - 1/4 tsp
salt - to taste
curry leaf - 1 sprig
cilantro - few leaves
dry red chilly - 2
mustard - 1/2 tsp
fenugreek - 1/2 tsp
oil - 1 tbsp
asafoetida / hing - 1 pinch

To coarsely grind:

garlic - 5 pieces
black pepper - 1 tbsp
cumin - 1 tbsp

Method:
Choose a very tender small chicken portion with bones.Wash it with water. Cut it into small pieces and smash the bones with the back side of the butcher's knife.
(Generally they used to crush the pieces in a big mortar).

Put the chicken, salt in a large vessel. Add enough water (5 cups) to cover it. Add the finely chopped tomato, turmeric and cook covered till done. (We can pressure cook it too).

Heat a wok with a tbsp of oil. Add methi, mustard seeds and let the mustard crackle. Put a pinch of hing and curry leaves, dry red chillies. Then add the crushed garlic,pepper, cumin and stir well for 20 seconds.

Pour the cooked chicken along with that soup and bring it to a boil. Garnish with finely chopped cilantro and switch off. Close tightly and let all the flavor remains intact.

Chicken rasam is ready!

Serving suggestions:

Serve with piping hot rice and fried chicken or egg.
It can also be served as soup.

Paal kozhukkattai (Type 2)

Paal kolukkattai is a famous payasam / kheer in my home town. I have never seen it being served in any restaurant. so I guess it is a regional dessert. It can be made using white sugar or jaggery. Click to see my milky white paal kolukkattai. The whiter one is more popular and made of cow's milk. But the jaggery based one has more native flavor and made with coconut milk.This version is my hubby's most favorite and he started asking me once more on seeing this :)

Paal kolukattai in jaggery and coconut milk payasam.

For kozhukkattai:

Rice flour - 3/4 cup
hot water - 1/2 cup
salt - a pinch

To make kolukkattai:

Bring 1/4 cup water to boil along with a pinch of salt.
Add this to the rice flour slowly till it reaches chapati dough consistency.

Divide the dough into two equal portions.
Make small balls of 1/2 inch diameter from one half of dough and elongated spheres of 1 inch length (Hemispherical cylinder) from another half.
Lets call them both as 'kolukkattai'. (While preparing big batches, they place the kolukkattai over a new wet cotton cloth spread on a large plate called thambalam and cover with the same cloth).

Bring 2 cups of water to boil and add handful of the kolukkattai to it.
Add them in smaller batches with some interval, otherwise all will get dissolved.
Wait till all the dumplings get cooked and water gets reduced to the minimum.

For payasam base:

Jaggery (crushed) - 3/4 cup
coconut - 1/2 (or) 1.5 cup extract
ghee - 1 tsp
cashew - 4
almond - 2
raisin - 10
cardamom powder - 1/4 tsp
shredded coconut - 2 tbsp

Method:

Shred the coconut and add 1/2 cup warm water to it. Squeeze the milk. repeat the same thrice to get all the coconut milk. Keep aside.
Add 2 cups of water to the jaggery and bring it to a boil.
Remove any dirt by filter. Pour this to the prepared kolukkattai and bring to a boil.
Now switch off and add the coconut milk, cardamom powder.

Fry the nuts, raisin in ghee and pour over the payasam. Decorate with freshly shredded coconut.

Paal kolukkattai payasam is ready.

Serving suggestions:

serve warm as dessert.