Namita Panjabi’s Rasam

Until recently, I had never had rasam, a spicy soup that became addictive as I sipped it. It is a favorite in India. I tasted it at the venerable Veerswami Restaurant in London, which has recently been taken over and refurbished—visually, culinarily, and spiritually—by Namita Panjabi, who kindly sent the recipe.

When I first made it, I got scared when I got to the part of the recipe that Namita calls “tempering.” The soup seemed too hot to need anything more. Howeve