Sambar

For the first few attempts, make sure you dont add dal all at once.. try by adding some and tasting and then more.. that way you know exactly when to stop.. the same goes for tamarind.. If there is excess of either i just use it for something else..

 

For palates that had grown up in the west, sambars have to be far far less spicy. On occasions, I had used a couple of unbroken dry red chilis in the tadka, and use the chili-free sambar powder to make the sambar. The unbroken chilis help for a nice display of the sambar on a pot-luck table. I have taken ravA-idly and chili-free sambar to American Thanksgiving pot luck gatherings, where everyone's idea of spicy-hot is a mexican pico-de-gallo.

A small bowl with the sambar and one or two mini-idlies in it goes down rather well. "Just like ravioli, but without the filling, isn't it?"--was one of the unusual comments.

Sambar Powder Without Chili - Whole Food Plant Based Recipes

 

Shallots and drumsticks are my favourite to add in Sambar.

 

Fictive or real, if sambar is controlling and empowering families then we must talk about it.

Akin to a visiting card, with an invite of meet me at my place, do you have any licensed or illegally appropriated thread of yours where such diversions can be routed. Let me know. We won't let this sambar sink without the disciplinary effervescence and aroma it lacks for having meddled in domestic affairs.

 

I actually cannot find my sambar recipe at the moement, but this one (from a NY Times article about "historic" indian recipes) looks pretty close:

250g toor dal, washed/soaked up to 2 hours (I neither wash nor soak toor dal, YMMV)

1 tsp turmeric powder

2-3 tbs vegetable oil

Pinch of asafoetida

1 tsp brown mustard seeds

¼ tsp fenugreek seeds

1-2 dried red chillies (optional)

20 fresh curry leaves

2 medium onions, finely sliced

2 tbs sambhar powder

2/3 tsp cumin powder

4 large handfuls prepared vegetables (cauliflower, okra, carrot, green beans etc) cut in to 3in pieces

2 tomatoes, coarsely blended or grated (I use a small can of crushed tomatoes)

2 tbs tamarind purée in 60-80ml water

Bring the lentils to a boil with half the turmeric powder and 1 tsp salt in enough water to cover the lentils by 10cm. Skim off any scum and simmer for about 45 minutes until the lentils completely break up in the liquid.

After 15-20 minutes, heat the oil in a large saucepan. Add hing, then mustard seeds. Once popping dies down add the fenugreek seeds, curry leaves and chillies if using. Stir well. After 10-15 sec add onions. Sauté until softened and brown on the edges. Add the cumin, remaining turmeric, ¾ of the sambhar powder, ½ tsp salt and a splash of water. Cook for a minute.

Stir in the vegetables. Cover and cook for 5 minutes, stirring once or twice. Stir in the tomatoes, cover again and cook for another 5 minutes until the vegetables soften. Add half the tamarind water, stir well for another minute.

Add the broken down lentils. Adjust the water content (it should be a thin curry) then adjust the seasoning. Add more sambhar powder and tamarind water to taste. Bring to a boil and cook for 5-10 minutes to bring flavours together.


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My method is a little different.

I never add anything to the toor dal until it is cooked. I add all the turmeric I am going to use to the poppu.

I never fry hing, I always add it to the lentils with the poppu but not IN the poppu - and my poppu uses oil first, then about 1 T split chana, 1 T split urad, fenugreek, cumin seed, then mustard when these are just starting to brown, then turmeric, then QUICKLY because these last will burn, the crumbled up dried chilis and curry leaves. Sometimes I use a pinch of ajwain.

Then onions, and ginger/garlic if you are using it.

THEN the turmeric. I add some freshly ground coriander with the onions (at the same time as the turmeric.

I don't use sambhar powder - I think everything that is in sambhar powder is already in the list of spices above. But I could be wrong. Haven't made it in quite awhile as my son dislikes idli/sambar so ... no point in cooking it for him. But now that I'm on my own again, I need to whip some up for myself. It's one thing I can have as a diabetic without much problem. Anyway.

Then I add the canned tomatoes plus any fresh veggies I am using such as green beans *AND CARROTS* (had to add that, forgot them!) and cook them til nearly done, THEN add all to the cooked toor dal. Usually the veggies are simmering just as the toor dal is finishing cooking which takes only a little coordination.

I almost forgot, I put the tamarind into the cooked lentils near the end, probably about the time I start the poppu. It has been awhile since I made it but I think that is right.

Oh, and no water or salt in the poppu/tadka. I put salt in the cooked lentils. I actually have never heard of that before, but India is a vast subcontinent of many dark mysteries - especially when it comes to cuisine.

EDIT: Now that I've written this up I just put green beans and carrots on my grocery list. It's shoppin' day!

 

Honestly - the only veggies I usually use in sambar are onions, crushed tomatoes, and green beans, preferably fresh. I used to use pearl onions or the little red onions, whole, on occasion. Drumstick was unobtanium in the US until fairly recently and I don't mind it but I don't seek it out either.

OH! And CARROTS! I think that's the extent of what I normally would put in sambhar.

I have never used black pepper in sambar either. The only way I can recall ever using black pepper in any Indian dish is when I make garam masala, a little bit goes in that. Probably something lacking in my upbringing.

I'm not sure my mother actually knew how to cook at all - she turned all that over to me when I was all of 6, turned me loose in the kitchen with some US cookbooks from the 40s and 50s and a set of measuring cups, and that's all she wrote - hence I never learned to cook anything Indian until I was married. She WAS only 16 when she married my dad, and he was near 30 - so maybe she never had a chance to learn much either. We did eat rice based dishes fairly often, which was a 9 days wonder to my peers at school. Hardly any of them had ever even seen rice, LOL!