Ramblings of a delusional dumbass

A favourite childhood memory of mine is me coming home from school to a mound of steaming rice topped with a ladle of thick pappu (boiled mashed green gram) and a generous helping of homemade ghee surrounded by a moat of tangy chinta charu (tamarind rasam).  It was my first tryst with nostalgia. The first bite would transport me back to simpler times when the school days and my trousers were both half in measure. I’ve always maintained that my ammi, my late grandmother, invented the dish. One of the most unfortunate outcomes of her passing was the loss of the recipe. You might think I’m being inconsiderate, but the dish is to die for. And my mother’s version just doesn’t taste like what ammi used to make. I’d been on the hunt for this elusive dish for years. I’ve scrounged around the annals of the internet long enough to know that it isn’t familiar, let alone popular. So, I took it upon myself to recreate the dish, from memory.  It took me years to perfect it. The pappu was ea...