Tomato Rasam made simple

A delicious, simple and quick spicy-sweet-sour soup.  It’s similar in flavour to the spiced lentil recipe I posted on 22 December 2019 but much simpler. Prep 5 mins. Cooking 20-30 mins. Perfect for lunch or an easy weekend dinner. 

Ingredients

3 tbsp oil

2 onions, chopped

2 cloves garlic crushed

A few curry leaves (if you have them or a dash of curry powder)

1 tsp graterd ginger

1 tsp mustard seeds

1 tsp ground turmeric

1 tsp rasam marsala*

1 tsp cumin

Black pepper ground

400g chopped tomatoes (fresh or canned)

1 tsp tamarind paste (or 2 limes zest and juice)

1L stock or ½ stock and water

1 cup split red lentils

¼ cup chopped fresh coriander or parsley

Salt & pepper

½ cup natural yogurt

Method

Heat a large saucepan, add oil and cook onions for 4-5 mins to soften but not colour. Add spices and curry leaves and cook for a further 1 min to release flavours.

Add tomatoes, water/stock and lentils and bring to the boil, then simmer hard for 15 mins, stirring regularly until lentils are soft to the bite but still firm; add more water if soup becomes too thick. Add coriander/parsley, season and serve topped with yogurt.

Serves 4-6

Chook’s note: *if you don’t have rasam masala use garam masala and add some black pepper.

Use semi dried herbs if you don’t have fresh. Add chilli powder or flakes to bump up the heat if you like hot spicy.  I use Korean Taekyung red chili flakes (I bought for kimchi and am still using it up. It's not too hot). In the end it's up to you what you include. if your spice supply in low or your're on the raod simply use good old Clive f India. It's hard to beat.