How to make the perfect tomato rasam – recipe

This tangy broth is an appetiser made throughout south India, but there are so many variations it would take a brave soul to distil them into the definitive dish …

According to the Times of India, “no south Indian meal is complete without rasam. Also known as Saaru & Chaaru in Kannada & Telugu languages, it’s a simple appetiser recipe that increases your hunger.” The word means juice, or extract, which should give you some idea about the consistency of this tangy broth, which, as Cyrus Todiwala explains, is “sipped both to add flavour and aid digestion”.

J Inder Singh Kalra describes it as “an appetizer-cum-digestive-cum-accompaniment”, a versatile dish that comes in many flavours – Chandra Padmanabhan’s book of South Indian vegetarian recipes, Dakshin (which was gifted to me by the Guardian’s own Meera Sodha), for example, contains no fewer than 10 different recipes, from buttermilk to garlic – but even within the tomato variation that I’ve picked to make the most of seasonal produce, Sanjeev Kapoor notes that every bowl “will always have the imprint of the cook, since everyone makes it differently”. Here’s the way I like it.