I'll have to find some when I'm home visiting

but steam  posting some pics of the antique roses growing in his yard made me remember one of my fondest birthday memories - going to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens around my birthday and my father taking my pictures in the Rose Trellis. Every year! for ages!

I'll have to find them and see about scanning them in.

mmm! antique roses! I'll have to find some for my birthday!

Tomato Rasaam, with fish

I was listening to "The Splendid Table" on saturday morning, and she was talking about salt cod, and how to make a spanish style dish...

and suddenly, I wanted tomato saaru (or rasaam) but I wondered how it would taste with fish. Cod in particular. Something about the idea of pieces of white flakey fish floating in a clearish sea of red tomato-ey goodness sounded SO GOOD.

that and the saaru flavor  is spicy, tomato-ey, and when done correctly, a very clear broth.

So the experiment - but I didnt know how to make the saaru. I know its easy, but I couldnt recall the ingredients other than tomato.

Call my Amma. On  a Saturday afternoon, when I know she's out for a dinner party. Oh geeze. I'm so lame,having this crazed craving for it. I call basmati  and ask her to look it up Dakshin, but that didnt sound right either.

At 9 pm PST (midnite back east) my Amma calls - they just got back from a party in CT, and she'd gotten my voicemail on the home machine and figured I'd be up...

Boil 3 tbs of red lentils in 6 cups of salted water until tender in a BIG pot. Remember to wash the stupid lentils, or you'll be skimming foam forever. Doh.

Cut up tomatoes (four cups chopped), cook them in a little oil with four cloves of smashed chopped garlic until the tomatos release their water. Add the rasaam powder. I made my own - for 4 cups of chopped tomatoes, I used 3 tbs of Coriander seeds, 1.5 tbs of cumin, 2 of peppercorn, and a handful of dried red chilie peppers - dry roast each spice individually, let cool and grind together. (I used 6 peppers, and likely should have used 3 or 4 in hindsight. _I_ like it, but its prolly too spicy for anyone else.) 

Drop the spices and some water on the tomatoes and garlic and let it cook up some more. When the rawness of the tomatoe is obviously done, dump this mixture into the BIG pot with the lentil water. Add about 3 cups of chopped potatoes. (in hindsight again, prolly didnt need the potatoes, I'll try it again without) . Taste. Scream at the heat, add a bunch of salt and more water to bring it to a thinner soup texture. (it was very thick at this point) 

Bring to a simmer.

Taste again and .. kinda have a moment.

Kind of have a few moments. Because you see, THIS WAS IT. This was the taste I was looking for. The sharp red chili tempered with the smokier cumin/coriander with the bite of peppercorn with the backdrop of the sweetish saltiesh tomatoes...

I might have cried a little. Mouthgasms for sure. Oh! for once in my life I remember "getting it right"... or just like Amma might have made.

Frankly, potatoes and fish were superflous - but I had 'em, so I threw 'em in. Cooked the potatoes until tender, threw in the fresh rock cod until cooked, and served it in wide open bowls so you could see the clear rasaam surrounding the small pile of tomatoe/potatoe/fish...

Spicy!

I'll have to think about how to meld those flavours more - the amount of chili overpowered everything for this dish and might have been better with just tomato alone. I'll try it again with a less flakey fish in bigger chunks, and maybe roasted tomatoes and A LOT FEWER chilis. I think I've got something fun here. :)

(dont get me wrong. I like the dish. I have leftovers I'll be taking to work. But already, how to make it better...) 

enough ingredients left to make another rasaam this week. :)