Growing up, Sambhar has always been a regular delicacy at home, since I'm half-Mangalorean.
My late granny, Revathi Kotian, who hailed from Katipalla, near Mangaluru, would make it the best and I miss having hers!
Now my mom, Sunita Harisinghani, makes it 99.9 percent as well as Amma, and here's her recipe. It contains plenty of vegetables and freshly-made sambhar masala.
Photograph: Kind courtesy Sonia Goyal/Wikimedia Commons
Mom’s Sambhar
Serves: 4-5
Ingredients
- 1 cup toor dal or pigeon peas
- 1 tsp haldi or turmeric powder
- 2 medium-sized tomatoes, chopped
- Lime-sized ball tamarind, soaked in a little water
- 1 tsp jaggery
- Salt to taste, about 1 ½ tsp
- Water
For the sambhar powder:
- 2 tsp chana dal or Bengal gram
- 2 tsp urad dal or white gram
- 2 tbsp brown dhania or coriander seeds
- 2 tsp jeera or cumin seeds
- ½ tsp methi or fenugreek seeds
- ½ tsp rai or mustard seeds
- 8-10 black peppercorns
- 8-10 red chillies
- 2 sprigs curry leaves
The vegetables:
- 200 gm lal kadu or bopla or red pumpkin, chopped into cubes
- 200 gm small cauliflower florets
- 2-3 drumsticks, roughly peeled or scraped and cut into 1½-inch pieces
- 100 gm French beans, cut into 1-inch pieces
- 2 medium-sized small or baby baingans or eggplant or brinjals, cubed
- 200 gm suran or jimikand or elephant yam, peeled, cubed
- 2 medium-sized potatoes, peeled, cubed
- 250 gm sambhar onions, peeled
For the tadka or tempering:
- 2 tsp coconut oil
- ½ tsp hing or asafoetida
- 1½ tsp rai or mustard seeds
- 1 sprig curry leaves
Method
For the sambhar powder:
- Dry roast the coriander seeds, cumin seeds, fenugreek seeds, mustard seeds, black peppercorns, chana dal, urad dal, red chillies, 1 sprig curry leaves, together on a tawa, over low heat, for 5-1o minutes, stirring occasionally.
Take off heat and cool.
- In a mixer, grind to a fine powder and keep aside.
For the sambhar:
- In a pressure cooker, cook the toor dal with the tomatoes, about 1½ cups water, turmeric powder, over medium heat, for 3 whistles and take off heat.
Let the pressure release naturally and then open up the cooker and keep aside.
- Meanwhile, boil the vegetables separately in a little water.
- Add the boiled veggies, with its water, to the boiled dal.
Return the cooker to the heat and bring the sambhar to a boil.
Add the freshly-ground sambhar powder, salt, jaggery, tamarind pulp and mix.
Let it boil for 2 minutes and then take off heat.
For the tadka:
- Heat coconut oil in a small frying pan or tempering pan, over medium heat.
Add the mustard seeds, curry leaves, asafoetida.
Once the spices begin to crackle, pour it into the sambhar.
- Serve piping hot with steamed rice and, if you prefer, also with appalams (South Indian rice papad), dash of ghee on the rice and pickle.