Rasam to warm you up

Our neighbour Uma and her family are like a ray of sunshine on a bleak winter day. They come bearing containers of food every now and then, and feed our hearts and gladden our souls. And when winter comes knocking at our doors, she sends us hot rasam. I am immensely fond of this spicy, soup-like dish, especially her mutton rasam. It warms me up and whets my appetite.

Soups are good for all seasons. Cold soups — think of gazpacho or chilled cucumber soup — work well when the temperature shoots up. But when it dips, there is nothing quite like a bowl of hot soup. When our helpful neighbours are out of town or otherwise busy, we order rasam and papadams from South Indian eateries. What we don’t get very easily are the non-vegetarian variations of rasam — such as hot broths cooked with chicken, mutton, or crab meat.

Another great winter warmer is the hot-and-sour soup. Our local Chinese restaurants know that during this season, when we place an order, hot-and-sour soup is the first item on our list. We love it for all the chunky ingredients that go into the thick soup — from vegetables and meats to seafood and tofu. Soy sauce, chilli sauce, vinegar, and black pepper enhance the hot flavours. The Thai tom yum gai (hot-and-sour chicken soup) is another great winter dish. In this, the heat comes from Bird’s Eye chillies, which are an essential element of Southeast Asian cuisine.

Our Oriental cuisines know the importance of spicy soups. Soups, along with other dishes, are always served with an array of hot sauces. I enjoy adding the red hot chilli sauce and the thin sauce of green chillies in vinegar to my soups. Noodle soups such as thukpas — a heap of noodles in a bowl of light broth, peppered with vegetables and meats — can be tempered with dollops of sauces. Thanks to these super-hot add-ons, I hardly ever need to consult my ENT specialist — the spicy condiments open up my sinuses without a problem!

Black pepper and hot soups go well together. That is how the popular mulligatawny soup took shape and a name. It’s a portmanteau of the Tamil words milagu (pepper) and thannir (water). This so-called pepper water is cooked with various kinds of meats, too.

A recipe I discovered for a spicy tomato soup keeps me warm just by thinking about it. The tomato soup is cooked with bell peppers, fire-roasted diced tomatoes, jalapenos, tequila and lime, and topped with smoky paprika. A very spicy soup is a stew prepared with Goan pork sausages, which are heavily spiced and cured with vinegar, red chillies and garlic.“These sausages are the soul of the dish. They give the stew its deep red colour and signature aroma,” says chef Gabriella of Gabriella’s Goan Kitchen, a food outlet based in Delhi.

I think one of the most effective soups — or call it what you will — for the season is a thin broth of masoor dal. Boil just a fistful of dal in a pot of water. Once it’s cooked — it should be almost mushy — mix it well and let it simmer for a bit. Temper with red hot chillies, and then add small pieces of green chillies to the thin dal. Squeeze a slice of lemon over it, and then slurp it up. Potato fries, sprinkled with powdered black pepper, will enhance the experience.

The weather in North India is turning. And so am I — towards the kitchen.

Uma's rasam

Ingredients

For the spice powder

Black peppercorns ½ tsp

Cumin seeds ½ tsp

Coriander seeds ½ tsp

Fennel seeds ½ tsp

Red chillies (dried) 2-3

For the rasam

Gingelly (sesame) oil 2 tsp

Garlic cloves (finely chopped) 7

Onions/shallots (small, chopped) 12

Curry leaves 2 sprigs

Tomato (ripe) 1

Salt ½ tsp

Water 4 cups

Coriander leaves A handful

Mutton rasam

For mutton stock

Mutton bones (can include ribs) 250 gm

Water 4 cups

Peppercorns A few

Turmeric powder ½ tsp

Curry leaves 1 sprig

Salt To taste

— The writer is a food critic