Rasam

Rasam is the South Indian answer to broth: tamarind water simmered with tomato and spice, made silky with a small amount of toor dal and finished with a hot tempering. This is a tomato-pepper rasam, the everyday version served as a soup before rice or poured over it, where the pepper is the heat and the tamarind is the sourness.

Balance is everything in the pot. The tamarind pulp is soaked and squeezed, then tasted against the tomato's own sourness, because tamarind varies from batch to batch; the dal is cooked separately and whisked to a cream so it thickens the rasam without clouding it; and the pepper and cumin are pounded coarse rather than ground, so their heat stays in specks instead of sinking into the liquid.

For a baby or a small child, make a milder pot of the same tamarind rasam: leave out the red chillies, crush the pepper lightly and skip the chilli in the tempering. The toor dal guide explains the dal behind the recipe; the toor dal recipes roundup collects the other dishes. A coriander rasam is the same pot with a big handful of coriander pounded into the spice mix.