Homemade Sambar Powder

I usually use store bought Sambar powder and MTR brand happens to be my favorite. But recently I ran out of it and couldn't go to the Indian store to buy more. So that is when I made this homemade sambar powder from Dakshin cookbook by Chandra Padmanabhan.

Freshly made sambar powder is very flavorful and adds a lot of taste to the dish. It can be stored in an airtight container for up to 3 months. Here are some sambar recipes on the blog for some inspiration.

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Leeks Sambar

Blogging Marathon#64: Week 4/ Day 3

Theme: Mega BM Bookmarked Recipes 

Dish: Leeks Sambar from Vidhya

For the final day of this month's marathon, I have an interesting sambar made with Leeks from Vidhya's blog. I bookmarked it the minute I saw it on her blog and made it once I got my hands on some leeks.

Leeks belong to the 'Allium' family along with onions and garlic. They have a mild onion-like taste and are crunchy when eaten raw. But they get soft and mild when cooked. I buy leeks quite often and make pasta sauces or dry sautes with them. Vidhya's leek sambar sounded very interesting and delicious.

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Pavakkai Pitlai (Bittergourd Coconut Curry)

Blogging Marathon# 61: Week 2/ Day 1

Theme: Meal Ideas

Dish: Bittergourd Pitlai

My theme for this week's Blogging marathon is probably one of my favorite. It is 'Meal Ideas', Valli wants us to showcase a complete meal even if that means sharing just one recipe. Coming up with a plan for a meal is quite an exercise for the brain which is why most of us try to delegate the task to the family by asking, 'what do you want to eat today?' I am one of those people who will ask this question and then reject almost everything that is being requested, only on very rare occasions a suggestion is actually cooked. But I don't fail to ask the question ;-)

Coming from south India, most of our meals revolve around rice, so for the next 3 days, I'm going to share some interesting meal ideas with rice as one of the component.

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Saravana Bhavan Sambar

Blogging Marathon# 53: Week 4/ Day 2

Theme: Bookmarked Recipes -- Veena's Veg Nation

Dish: Saravana Bhavan Sambar
For the 2nd day of cooking from Veena's space, I made this perfect Saravana Bhavan sambar. Saravana bhavan is a popular restaurant in Chennai and this sambar replicates the one served there.

I've never been to this restaurant in India, but heard a lot about it. So we went to their Edison location in NJ, but lets just say the experience is nothing to talk about. The food was 'meh' and the service was 'blah' :-) But I want to visit the restaurant in Chennai some time. Hopefully that day will come sooner than later.

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Mixed Dal Sambar with Onion & Radish

It has been a busy month so far with the on-going A-Z International mega marathon. But I didn't want to miss Valli's 'Cooking from Cookbook Challenge' because I have so many recipes bookmarked that if I don't make them now, I'll never make them.

This Mixed Dal Sambar recipe is from a recent Telugu cooking show that I watched and liked the use of more than one dal to make sambar. I jotted it down and made it today for lunch. I've blogged masoor dal sambar & regular sambar already. Taste wise I don't think there's any difference between this and the regular sambars, but I think texture wise adding moong dal makes this a little more creamy than the other versions. Give it a try if you looking for a slightly different variation to your regular sambar. Also change the veggies too and add whatever you fancy or have in your fridge.

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Thengai Paal Kootu (Mixed Vegetables in Coconut Milk Gravy)

Blogging Marathon# 41: Week 4/ Day 2
Theme: BM Pair (Sujatha Ram)
Dish: Thengai Paal Kootu

Today's dish from Sujatha's blog is a super simple, yet very delicious mixed veg curry cooked in coconut milk. Veggies are cooked in coconut milk and flavored with sambar powder -- it's that simple, but the flavor both these ingredients infuse into the veggies is just amazing.

I wanted to speed up the process a little, so I precooked the veggies in the microwave and then finished cooking on the stove with coconut milk. This dish is very similar to the Kerala vegetable stew, but the sambar powder makes this a completely different dish.

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Kerala Cabbage Thoran & Sambar

Blogging Marathon# 35: Day 1/ Week 2
Theme: Regional Dishes - Course Specific
Dish: Kerala Cabbage Thoran & Sambar

We are starting our Week 2 of Blogging Marathon# 35 and my theme for this week is 'Any Regional with Course Specific dishes'. After seeing Rajani's Kerala Sadya recipes during the mega month long marathon, I have been planning to try my hand at Kerala dishes. Finally I made 3 dishes for this week's marathon.
The twist that Valli put to this seemingly simple theme is that we have to post a different course every day. So for the first day I'm posting 2 Kerala Lunch dishes, a simple Cabbage thoran and a hearty Sambar.

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Masoor Dal Sambar (Indian Style Red Lentil Stew)

VeganMofo Day 10: I had plans to post everyday for this year's Veganmofo. So much for my wishful thinking, little did I realize that tending for a newborn can be so time consuming, even though all I'm doing is holding her so she doesn't spit up or rocking her to sleep. It's been 5 years since we had done this with my older one and I don't really remember what we did when he was a little baby. Time surely flies..

Thankfully my mom is here to help me out and for today's post I have this delicious Masoor dal Sambar that she made for our lunch. I usually use toor dal to make sambar. Masoor dal makes a smoother and milder tasting sambar. Vegetables like eggplant, bottle gourd, carrot, potato, chayote etc can be added to the sambar to make it more substantial.

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Mixed Vegetable Sambar

For a lot of South Indians Sambar does not fall under holiday special dishes. But for me this sambar with freshly ground masala (spice) paste makes for a comforting weekend meal. I usually make sambar with sambar powder (store-bought or homemade), but when I have time or have company coming over, I take the time to make the masala myself.

Recipe I use is from Chandra Padmanabhan’s Dakshin cookbook.

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Cooking Around Flavors - Sweet & Tangy

I was watching Rachel Ray’s 30 minute meals the other day and she was making a menu around smoky flavors. She used various ingredients like cumin, chipotle in adobo, smoked Gouda cheese etc to get the smoky taste in all the dishes. That made me thinking about Indian menus around one particular flavor.

I don’t usually like having the same flavor in all the dishes. I like to have complimentary flavors like hot & spicy with mild & slightly sweet. Well for this menu, I wanted to have the same flavor, sweet and tangy, in all the dishes.

I made Pearl Onion pulusu and Carrot & Coconut curry with white rice.

Potato fry, Carrot-Coconut curry, Onion Pulusu with Rice

Pearl Onion Pulusu (Chinna Ullipaya Pulusu)

Ingredients:
Pearl Onions – 12, peeled and cut in half
Tomatoes – 2 ripe, chopped
Green chilies – 4
Tamarind paste – 2 tbsp
Sambar powder – 1 ½ tsp
Jaggery – 3 tbsp
Rice flour – 1 tbsp, mixed with water
Turmeric – ½ tsp

For Tempering:
Urad dal – 1 tsp
Mustard seeds – 1 tsp
Cumin seeds – 1 tsp
Dry red chilies – 2
Curry leaves – 6-8
Asafoetida, hing – pinch

Method:

• Heat 1 tbsp oil in a saucepan, add the ingredients for tempering one after another in the same order. When the seeds splutter, add the onions and sauté on medium heat till they turn light golden.
  
• Add the tomatoes, cover and cook till they get mushy. Add tamarind paste, 2 cups water and bring the mixture to a boil.
  
• Stir in sambar powder, jaggery and simmer for 5 minutes.
  
• Add the rice flour mixture, cook for another 2 minutes. Stir in chopped coriander leaves.

This sweet and sour dish goes well with rice and plain dal (utti pappu).

Onion-Green Pepper Sambar

I googled the word “Sambar” and was really surprised to see the number of results displayed (around 75,000 of them). I knew sambar is a very versatile dish, but I didn’t realize that each household in south India have their own way of making it. When you think of sambar, you think of (idlis, of course.. but that’s not what I’m thinking here J) spicy lentil-tamarind based soup with veggies. But the different ways in which all these ingredients come together, gives rise to a plethora of sambar recipes.

Doesn't that book look wicked?? This is the book that I carried with me to write down recipes from my mom, my mother-in-law and the TV (there are like 4 different cooking shows on 4 different telugu channels in the span of 2 hours in India and I made sure that I didn’t miss out anything interesting on any of the shows). I have some authentic Andhra dishes and some fancy (can I use that word for food???) dishes in the book that I have to try. Will post about them soon.

For now, here is my mom’s way of making sambar. I used potatoes, green peppers and onions for this.

Ingredients:
Toor dal – 1 cup
Onions – 1 large, thinly sliced
Green pepper – 1 medium, sliced thin
Potatoes – 2 medium, sliced thin
Tomatoes – 2 medium, chopped fine
Tamarind paste – 2 tbsp
Salt – to taste

For Sambar paste:
Chana dal – 2 tbsp
Urad dal – 2 tbsp
Red chilies – 6
Coriander seeds – 1 tsp
Cumin seeds – 1 tsp
Pepper cloves – ½ tsp
Fenugreek seeds - 1/4 tsp
Grated coconut (fresh or dry) – 4 tbsp

For Tadka:
Mustard Seeds - 1 tsp
Cumin Seeds - 1 tsp
Curry leaves - 6

Rice with Goruchikkudukaya kura, Sambar, Gongura pachadi & onions

Method:

• To make the paste, fry all ingredients except for coconut in 1 tsp ghee. Cool and grind into a smooth paste along with grated coconut. Keep aside.
  
• Pressure cook dal until very very smooth (I usually wait for atleast half a dozen whistles in my cooker). Boil the veggies in just enough water till tender.
  
• Add chopped tomatoes, cover and cook tomatoes turn mushy.
  
• Add the cooked dal (mash it a little bit for smoother texture), tamarind paste, ground paste, salt and 2 cups of water.
  
• Bring it to a slow simmer and cook till you get the desired consistency. Add water if you like your sambar on the liquidy side.
• Heat 1 tsp oil in a small pan, add cumin seeds, mustard seeds and curry leaves. After the seeds splutter add it to sambar. Mix well.

I always end up making a whole big pot of sambar that lasts for atleast 3-4 meals and I don’t mind that because the taste just keeps getting better the next day. Enjoy with idli or rice.

Check out Sailu's, Trupti's, Mythreyee's, Revathi's and Indira's sambar recipes.