Indian Soup (Rasam)

Today, I am not feeling that good. You know that feeling you get when you can barely taste a thing that you are eating. It almost makes you not want to eat anything at all. I felt in the mood for some soup, and researched recipes for a Chinese soup to compliment the Chinese dinner tonight. Unfortunately, what I found was hot and sour soup with eggs in it. Another key ingredient would be mushrooms, which we do not have available. Then I found this recipe for a rasam, also known as soup. Looking at the ingredients, it's almost like dhal, but it looks a little toned down on the spice. I'm gonna try it out anyway ...

6 cups water
1 tbsp toor dal
1.5 tbsp jaggery
1/4 tsp turmeric powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 tbsp blackpepper
1/2 tbsp coriander powder
1/2 tbsp cumin powder
6 cloves garlic, crushed
2" piece ginger, grated
1 tbsp ghee
1/2 tsp asafoetida powder
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp mustard seeds

1. Bring the 6 cups of water to a boil.
2. Grind the toor dal with black pepper, coriander powder and cumin powder to a fine powder. Add to pot of boiling water.
3. Next add the crushed garlic and grated ginger.
4. If you have rasam powder, add half a tsp of that (totally optional, though.)
5. Bring the pot to a boil, lower the flame and cook for 10-15 minutes.
6. Let cool for 5 minutes or so. and then strain the soup.
7. For seasoning, heat up the ghee. Add the mustard seeds, cumin seeds and asafoetida powder. When the seeds fully pop, remove from heat and garnish the soup. Top it off with chopped cilantro and serve hot as soup or with rice.

Although the rasam helped me feel a bit better, this recipe is going under "Flops."
A.) Firstly, the rasam was too thin for my taste, maybe because we did not use enough toor dal. Instead of 1
tbsp, it should have been about 1/2 cup.
B.) Secondly, the toor dal should have been cooked properly in pressure cooker before even adding to pot.
The flavor tasted a little like raw spices, too. It was hot and sweet, and at the same time a bit mustardy.
C.) Should have added tomato to help thicken it up a little bit.

Rasam is a south Indian soup. There are many different varieties, which I hope to try out. This particular one may not make it on the list because we Gujaratis prefer our toor dal, just the way it is -- with our bhatt!