Tomato Rasam recipe

I saw a lot of rasam recipes on internet but all of them were using toor dal/kandi pappu. I remember my mom never used kandi pappu in making rasam. Here am posting a rasam recipe without the kandi pappu.

This is a little time consuming but I promise you, you will love the rasam later, (all my friends did :))

here's what you will need:

some nice desi tomatoes
a lemon sized tamrind
curry leaves
red chillies
very little oil
regular popu/tadka (sesame seeds, cumin seeds, minapa pappu/urad dal, chana dal/chanaga pappu)
Chilli powder (this is only if you want the rasam to be very spicy, usually red chillis r enough)
Home made Rasam powder ( I know most of us cant get this but its very simple, just grind some cumin seeds, coriander seeds and black pepper and you can use it for a long time and dont refregerate it. else simple alternative is you can use cumin powder, coriander powder and black pepper powder[I just made the world seem simple, didnt I? ;))
and Salt


So to start off with:

Take some water and add tamrind and tomatoes and boil the water till the tomatoes are cooked so as to peel away the skin.
Once done take out the tomatoes, peel the skin and mash them very well. I dont recommend using a hand blender as it does not work out that well, and please dont grind the tomatoes, its nice to see some tomatoes in the rasam :)
once you have mashed the tomatoes, take out the juice from the tamrind and retain the water.

Now the easy part:

Take very little oil in a pan(don't use a flat one) add some red chillies, and the popu. Once the popu splitters add the curry leaves, mashed garlic and fry for a few seconds. Now add the mashed tomatoes, tamrind water and some more water if you feel the rasam is very thick.
now add the rasam powder, chilli powder, salt and a little turmeric.

Bring it to a nice boil. do not hurry, leave it on simmer and go check your mail ;). come back after 5 or 10 mins, there would be an awesome layer of golden yellow color on your rasam. check the salt and your rasam is all set.

Enjoy! this rasam and love the food you eat! :)