Rasam ....how simple!

I know that S used to make a lot of rasam during his bachelor days, but my experience with rasam is very limited. I don't remember my mother making a lot of rasam at home.Some of my good rasam memories are from when I visited my mom's sister at Trivandrum and also at my brother in laws house, and my worst rasam memories are of course from the hostel canteen. It has been almost 3 yrs since I have known S and we have never made rasam. So...I am making it today.
We had gone to Berkshire over the weekend, and on our way back we stopped at a farm and bought some lovely tomatoes. I was putting them away in the fridge when inspiration struck..So I looked up the cookbook by Mrs.K.M.Mathew and sure enough that was the third recipe in the book. Luckily I also had all the ingredients for making rasam...the ginger was almost dried up but who cares, I managed to get some fresh looking ginger after peeling away most of the outer parts. And to my surprise, this was one of the simplest dishes I put together. How does it taste? Not too bad...Will I make this again? Sure...although it won't me my favorite. I could fall back on times like this when I need to eat quick.
I will post the recipe here

Ingredients
1. Cooked toor dal half cup
Tomatoes 2 large, each cut into 8 pieces
Curry leaves 2 sprigs
Water 4 cups
Tamarind 3-4 small pieces, mix with water and use that water
Salt to taste
2.
Coriander seeds 2 table spoon( 1 used 1 tbsp. of powdered coriander)
Black pepper 1teaspoon
Jeera seeds 1 teaspoon
Ginger 1 teaspoon sliced thin
Garlic cloves 4( leave whole)
Dried red pepper 1
Asafoetida( I used the powder form, maybe used 1/4 tsp.)
3.
Cooking oil 1 tablespoon
Mustard seeds 1 teaspoon
Dried red pepper 2( cut into 2-3 pieces)
Coriander (fresh) 1 tablespoon

Method

Crush all the ingredients under the heading 2.
Add all this to ingredients under 1. and being to boil.
After the tomatoes have cooked weell, drain the mixture through a wide eyed sieve.( I did this ,but ended up adding some of the stuff to the drained liquid to give it some body)

Crack the mustard seeds in oil, add the dried red pepper and then add the drained mixture into it. Add fresh coriander and serve hot.