I have been known to cook. And, in fact, I am cooking pretty often now that I am in Geneva. I make brunch (something I did when my partner was in Chicago as well ) and dinners, and yes, I cook. It is actually fun, and I am renewing my love for the kitchen. I am also renewing some part of the adventure of discovering new things to make. This is partly because I am the designated go-to-CSA person and have been buying things I have no idea what to do with -- and partly because I have been unpacking and rearranging many items, including cookbooks. (I have even been giving some away, but that is another story entirely.)
So: one evening I was reminded while perusing a cookbook from Ireland, of rasam. The cookbook title: Cafe Paradiso Seasons by Denis Cotter. I particularly love this cookbook for a recipe for risotto which involves arugula, avocado and hot chili oil. And, as a result, have perused it over and over again. And yes, it is somewhat ironic that I re-discovered Rasam in this context given I do in fact own Indian cookbooks. But, hey, what inspires cooking is not always obvious.
First: what is rasam? According to the land of google, rasam is "A thin soup of southern India, typically made with tomatoes, tamarind, and various spices including turmeric, coriander, cumin, and red chilies, often served with steamed rice." (Citation from http://www.yourdictionary.com/rasam ) It even has a wikipedia article located here.
Part of what attracted me over and over again to the recipe until I finally made it is the visual in Cotter's book. The recipe is a two page spread with diagonal corners (bottom left of the left page and top right of the right page) featuring a beautiful white bowl (not the whole thing) with tomato rasam in it and spices -- clearly fennel seed, for example, floating in it. The photographer and designer knew how to ensure anyone flipping through the cookbook stopped right there. And I did. Again and again.
In any case, here is what I made/did:
Buy a pound or so of tasty tomatoes. We had them in the house because . . . well, we did. And I used every last one of them to make this soup. Make sure you own tamarind (I always do) and spices like fennel seeds and turmeric (I always do) and some ginger root (again, always). Buy some cilantro if you are out of it. ensure you own red lentils (apparently my partner always does).
Steps to actually make the soup (adapted from cookbook noted above):
(a) Simmer circa 3.5 ounces of red lentils over very low heat for about 20 minutes. After cooling, drain into a large pot or bowl. You can hang on to the lentils if you want and use them for something (including returning to the soup if you want to) or waste them.
(b) Roast 2 pounds of tomatoes coated in olive oil and lightly salter in a moderate oven (I picked 350 degrees) for 15 minutes. Add chopped ginger (circa 1 inch piece chopped) and some cloves of garlic (Cotter calls for 8; I am getting less and less into garlic as I age so I did not use 8. I used fewer cloves but cannot recall how many.) Continue to roast for a bit longer. Total maximum time 20 minutes. 15 will do it, in which you could add the garlic and ginger at 10 minutes. I did not.
(c) Remove tomatoes form oven, stir in 2 chopped fresh green chilis (I admit I used some bird chilis that are frozen and they worked fine), 2 teaspoons of turmeric, and a small bunch of what Cotton calls fresh coriander and we call (well, I call) cilantro. Then: put it all into a food processor and process away.
(Side note: you could just put the tomatoes into the processor and add the chilis, turmeric and cilantro there. Yep.
(d) Put tomato puree into the pot holding the lentil water.
(e) Mix some tamarind goo (turns out Cotton means tamarind when he uses the term tamapeel) into about 25 ounces or so of warm water. Add it to the pot with lentil water and tomato puree.
(f) Simmer for circa 15 minutes.
(g) In a frying pan with three TABLESPOONS of olive oil, fry up some green pepper corns (I had none so was missing this ingredient -- he calls for 1 teaspoon), mustard seeds (i used 2 teaspoons brown), fennel seeds (he calls for 2 teaspoons and I used a tad more as I was missing the peppercorns), and cumin seeds (1 teaspoon). fry til mustard pops.
(h) Serve soup with a dollop of the oil and seeds on top.
And, there you have it: rasam. Tart, tomatoey and I love the crunchy spicy oily top.
Also: this should serve as a recommendation for Cotter's book. IT won the world cookbook award for best vegetarian cookbook in the world in 2003. Every recipe I have made from it has been superb, reasonably easy to make, and tweakable without ruining it. So there folks who think there is no excellent Irish cooking.
