How to cook South Indian meals in just under 35 minutes

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HOW TO COOK SOUTH INDIAN MEAL IN 35 MINUTES

How to cook south Indian meals? In less time is the catch here.A little planning goes a long way. So does planning for a meal help us to prepare the south Indian meal in just under 30 minutes? I believe in the concept of whipping up a lovely delicious meal in a short time. I mostly plan all the meals for the week before the start of the week. This helps me to organise my pantry and cook food which is nutritious and this planning helps me not to waste any ingredient. This small atomic habit has helped me immensely in this time when we are all fighting against the pandemic which has overtaken the human race.

Being in a typical south Indian family, the food mostly revolves around south Indian cuisine interspersed with some north Indian food. When vibha was around, more of continental food also found its way into our menu. Now I stick to our Indian cuisine since we love Indian food. Now, planning a south Indian meal just under 30 minutes id definitely not difficult.

Our ancestors have been very good even in menu planning. Our generation thinks that only we have knowledge about the carbs, proteins or fat. I beg to differ. If you have a look at a typical Tamil cuisine, they were always designed keeping in mind the carbs, proteins and fats with the necessary micronutrients which come from the vegetables.

South Indian tambrahm meal will mostly have a sambar, which is rich in proteins. It will have the necessary carbs in the form of rice. Rasam, which is seen more as a soup as the appetizer and helps in the digestion. Then we will have the necessary vegetables to give us the micronutrients. Fat is from homemade ghee or unadulterated ghee. Probiotics are supplied with the curd that is used. So if I prepare a meal with these things taken into account, then I will have a balanced meal ready to be served.

Now comes the planning. How do I plan such an elaborate meal and yet cook it under 30 minutes? It is not very difficult. Assuming that we have 2 pressure cookers, cut vegetables for the curry, we are good to go. Cut vegetables are not mandatory though. We may need extra 10-15 minutes even if we cut the vegetables at the beginning of the cooking.

Here for this meal, I have served beetroot sambar, tomato rasam, Beans poriyal/ beans karimedhu, Rice, curd, pickle and ghee.

PLANNING FOR THE MEAL

I have cut the vegetables previous night and packed it in a box and kept in the refrigerator. If you a quick in cutting vegetables, you can choose to cut the beans just while starting. Let us start cooking

I have heated the water for the tamarind for 1 minute. Soaked the tamarind in it and left it aside. You can choose to heat the tamarind in water in a microwave too. The other option would be to use the readily available tamarind paste which is either homemade or store-bought. Here the soaked tamarind is for both the sambar and rasam. So do take the necessary quantity.

I have soaked the dal in water. Again dal/ Paruppu is for both sambar and rasam. Soaking helps the dal to cook fast.

I have cut the beetroot finely for sambar.

COOKING THE MEAL

Now, I quickly arrange two cookers on the gas stove. Here I am having two cookers/ or pressure pan and a four-burner gas stove. Two burner gas stove is more than sufficient.

In one cooker I have put the dal with water and turmeric powder plus a few drops of oil. On this, I have stacked the beetroot in another vessel and cooked it in high for 4 whistles

In the next burner, I have kept the beans in another cooker. Here I am not adding any water to the beans but cooking it for 3 whistles for it to cook well.

While both of these are cooking, I squeeze the tamarind juice for sambar and rasam separately and kept it ready in individual vessels.

There are no whistles yet, So I immediately cut and grind a tomato for the rasam in a mixer and add it to the tamarind juice.

The beans which are on my smaller burner cooked faster and after 3 whistles, I took it off and I have kept it aside.

In that burner, I will keep the rasam to cook on medium flame. As it starts to boil, I add the rasam powder and salt with curry leaves and let it boil for 2-3 minutes.

By now I check and see that the beans are ready for tempering. So I remove the rasam and keep it aside waiting for the dal to be cooked.

The cooker in which the dal is getting cooked is also ready and removed from the fire after 4 whistles.

The smaller cooker with the rice and the necessary water is now up for cooking on this burner while a small kadai goes into they smaller burner.

As we wait for the rice to get cooked, I add oil, mustard, Bengal gram dal and curry leaves and wait for it to splutter in the kadai. Once it splutters, I add the cooked beans and salt and mix well and let it cook for another 2 minutes. Now I add the coconut scrapings, mix well and the curry is ready. I remove this from the fire and bring back the rasam. Add a portion of the cooked dal and the water in the dal to this and let it boil.

Now the cooker with the rice after 3 whistles is also done, so I put a bigger kadai on the big burner to cook the sambar which is our final dish.

I heat the oil in the bigger kadai with mustard seeds, fenugreek seeds and curry leaves. Once it starts spluttering, I add the cooked beet into it and mix well and cook for 1 minute. Next, I add the tamarind extract and salt and cook for 3 minutes.

By now my rasam is ready. So I take it out of the fire and heat a very small pan for the tempering. For the tempering, I will add the ghee with mustard and cumin. Once it starts to splutter I will add it to the rasam with some fresh coriander leaves. Now rasam is also ready

Now I am back to the sambar. The time now to add the sambar powder and boil well for 3 minutes. We still have 7 minutes to go. After 3 minutes, we will have a nice sambar flavour. Now I will add the cooked and reserved dal for sambar and will continue to cook for another 3 minutes. By the end of 35 th minute, our meal with amber, rasam, poriyal and rice is ready.

Was it difficult? Not at all. It is a little planning which will help in cooking a south Indian meal in just under 35 minutes.

The recipes that I have shown here are only a sample. You can make Araichuvitta sambar, Keerai sambar, Mullangi sambar, Kovakkai Sambar or any other sambar. Likewise, you can make different rasam and vegetables too.