Sambhar

sambhar/sambar is a dish common in south India,and is made of toor dal. Sambar is often accompanied with idli and dosa & with white rice. Sambhar is easy to cook and its combination with lot of vegetables & pulses makes it nutritious enough. Sambar 's special exciting spicy aroma which make it more special ...

Ingredients :

Bottle gourd (Sorakaya) -1/2 fresh
carrots-2(peeled and sliced into your selected shape)
Winter Radish/mullangi-1(chopped into round shaped pieces)
Drum Sticks - 3( in my recipie i haven't used Drumsticks becoz i dont want to use frozen ones!!)
Ladies finger - 2 to 4
Green chilies-2(split into two)
onions - 2(medium size cut into larger pieces) if u have a smaller one just make it into 2 or 4 parts.
Ginger-Garlic paste-1 tsp
toor dal -1 cup
Curry leaves
turmeric powder
Water- 3 -5 cups
Tamarind -Size of a lemon(squeeze tamarind juice with 2-3 cups of water).
Red chilli powder -1/2 tsp
oil -2tsp
cumin seeds/zeera-1 tsp
MTR sambar powder/home made sambar powder-11/2tsp
Salt to taste
cilantro for garnishing

Preparation:

1.clean all the vegetables and slice into long/round pieces and soak tamarind in 1/2 cup of water.

2.Wash the dal.cook the dal in 2 cups of water(means for one cup of dal we need to use 2 cups of water) and cook dal in it using a pressure cooker. In pressure cooker you can keep the vegetable pieces(except ladies finger) and dal at the same time in different bowls or you can do it outside using stove/microwave seperately.

3.put the pan on heat and add oil.Once oil gets heated add cumin seeds and then onions and stir it for 5 min and then add ladies finger pieces ,stir it for 1 more min & then add ginger -garlic paste and stir it for 2 more min and then add the tamarind water(wash the tamarind & Boil the tamarind in little amount of water(say 1/2 cup) in microwave abt 2 min (if you forgot soak it before)and then squeeze the tamrind for tamrind juice)and increase the heat to med-high.

4.When tamarind water boils, add dal(make cooked dal into a fine paste by just pressing the dal with the spoon).once the whole liquid starts boiling reduce the flame to medium/medium-low.

5. Add the remaining cooked vegetables ,redchilli powder ,salt. Cook till done(4-5 min) and add sambar powder into it.

6.wait for 5 min after adding sambar powder ,then remove sambar from fire and Sprinkle the Sambar with chopped coriander/cilantro leaves.

Note: you can also add brinjal, tomato etc to the sambar.