Clean and wash the murungai flowers. Set aside.

Set the toor dal to cook either on stovetop or in a pressure cooker. Don’t add too much water, just enough to make a thick dal.

Soak the dry tamarind in a cup of warm water and extract a thick pulp.

Once the dal is cooked soft, beat it well with a spoon to break up the pulses.

Return this to a 1 litre eeya chombu or other pot on a medium flame.

Add the tamarind pulp you’ve extracted, and dilute the dal-tamarind mixture to about ¾ liter.

Add the ½ teaspoon turmeric, the ripe tomato (if using) and allow to simmer until the tomato cooks and the raw tamarind smell and taste are gone.

While that’s cooking, in a separate pan, heat a little ghee (or oil) and fry the flowers. Mash them well with the back of a spoon to release their flavors. Set aside.

Now add the rasam powder to the tal-tamarind mixture and reduce heat to a simmer. Add the jaggery and salt to taste.

Now allow the rasam to heat through—it will start to get foamy. Reduce the heat to minimum and add the fried murungai flowers.

Heat the ghee in a small tempering pan, and follow quickly with all other dry ingredients. Once these crackle and splutter, add the curry leaves.

Fry until the curry leaves are starting to crisp, and pour this directly on top of the foaming rasam.

Turn off the flame right away.

Serve hot with a soft white table rice like a semi-polished kullakar or parboiled polished iluppaipoo samba. Ambasamudram idli rice, Ambai 16, is famed for idlis but works brilliantly as a rasam-rice, too!