Vepampoo Rasam is a very mild rasam and prepared similar to goddu rasam and tempered with dried neem leaves in the end. It is a mix between paruppu rasam and goddu rasam; this uses cooked toor dal water instead of mashed toor dal itself.
Tamarind Paste - 2 tsps1 cup of tamarind juice extracted by soaked a small gooseberry sized tamarind
For tempering
Toor Dal – 1 tsp
Mustard Seeds – 1 tsp
Cumin Seeds – 1 tsp
Ghee or Oil – 2 tsps
Instructions
Prep Work: Cooked Toor Dal Water
I pressure cooked ½ cup of toor dal with 4 cups of water and with a pinch of turmeric powder. Before mashing the dal, I drained and saved about 1.5 cups of dal water for this rasam. The mashed dal, of course, went for sambar :-)
Mix the tamarind paste in 1 cup of water and set aside. If using tamarind, soak in water and extract the juice.
Method
Take a heavy bottomed vessel or pan in which you are going to prepare the rasam and add the tamarind water + ½ cup of water.
Add salt, turmeric powder, rasam powder, salt, curry leaves and red chilies and mix well.
Now heat this over medium heat.
Once it starts to boil, add the dal water and mix well.
Let it simmer again till forms the froth on top.
Once the froth forms, turn off the heat.
In a separate tadka pan, add ghee.
Once the ghee is hot, add the toor dal, cumin seeds, mustard seeds and the dried neem flowers.
Roast them for couple of minutes. The neem flowers should brown a bit.
Now add this to the rasam and mix well.
Notes
Adjust the rasam powder according to your taste. This is comparatively mild rasam.
You can add more neem flowers and also add about ¼ tsp while adding the rasam powder.
You can also add red chilly while tempering.
As toor dal plays a major role in providing the protein, you can add mashed dal also. In that case, increase the rasam powder and also dried neem flowers to 3 tsps.