• 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.

For the tempering

• 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!