Rassam should be thin enough to drink from a cup. If it thickens like a dhal, there is too much lentil in it.
Serves 4. About 25 minutes.
You need
- A lime-sized ball of tamarind, soaked in 500 ml hot water, or 2 tbsp tamarind paste
- 2 tomatoes, chopped small
- 60 ml cooked toor dhal, mashed loose
- 3 cloves garlic, crushed with the flat of a knife
- Curry leaves, a sprig
- Fresh coriander to finish
- 2 tbsp ghee or oil
- Salt
From the shelf: 1 heaped tbsp Rassam Masala, 1 tsp Mustard Seeds, 1 tsp Jeera, 2 Dried Red Chillies, a pinch of Hing, 1/4 tsp Haldi.
Method
1. Squeeze the tamarind in its soaking water and strain out the solids. You want about 500 ml of sour brown liquid.
2. Put the tamarind water in a pot with the tomatoes, haldi, rassam masala and salt. Simmer for ten minutes. The raw tamarind smell should go and the tomato should break down.
3. Stir in the mashed dhal and about 250 ml more water. Bring it back to just below a boil and take it off. Do not let it boil hard after the dhal goes in — it goes cloudy and loses the fresh pepper edge.
4. The tempering. Heat the ghee in a small pan. Add the mustard seeds and put a lid on. When they finish popping, add the jeera, the broken chillies, the garlic, the curry leaves and the hing. Ten seconds, no more.
5. Pour the tempering into the rassam and cover it immediately for a minute to trap the aroma. Finish with coriander.
Notes
Break the chillies if you want heat, leave them whole if you want the roasted flavour without it.
Serve over plain rice with a spoon of ghee, or on its own in a cup. The pepper is the point — this is the pot that gets made when somebody has a blocked nose.
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