Rasas Meal

A dear lovely neighbour introduced me to the concept of Rasas - the five flavours incorporated into an Indian meal: sourness, hotness, bitterness, saltiness and sweetness.

In the spirit of the Diwali upon us, the five flavours were all part of this beautiful dinner.

The same dear lovely neighbour packed me up with a couple of home made Indian dishes to demonstrate the Rasas concept.

Dahl was creamy and had green beans in it, bringing sourness into play with the yogurt eaten with it and those mustard seeds that were getting pleasantly sourly addictive.

Bitterness couldn't have been represented better than with this bitter melon curry, also courtesy of my dear lovely neighbour.

I have never even heard of bitter melon - it tastes like a bitter squash, but looks like it came from Mars.

And I just loved it.

Hotness emerged when I whipped this potatoe and meat korma based on a recipe from Reza Mahammad's new book - Reza's Indian Spice. 

It was packed with chilli peppers which hotness were brought out with long simmering and sitting for an hour before dinner to absorb the flavours.

Saltiness is a matter of course across all Indian dishes.

And of course, the fifth Rasas, sweetness, came in a box from the many Diwali sweet spreads on Fraser Street.

Now I picked on looks and ended with pleasant and not so pleasant surprises. 


But my favourite Rasas remains bitterness.

Thank you dear lovely neighbour for introducing me to Rasas and the lovely dishes you shared.