Kerala Sambar Recipe

Kerala Sambar Recipe: Serves 3-4

Preparation Time: 15-20 mins
Cooking Time: 40-45 mins

Ingredients:

For the Sambar:

    1½ or 1¾ cups of tuvar dal (arhar dal)
    1 small onion, sliced or chopped
    a pinch or two of asafoetida (hing)
    10-12 shallots
    8-10 okra
    5-7 aubergines (brinjal)
    1 large tomato or 2 medium size tomatoes
    1 sprig curry leaves
    1/2 tsp turmeric powder
    3/4 cup tamarind pulp – made with 3/4 cup water and 1 lemon sized ball of tamarind
    salt
    water

For the tempering/tadka/chaunk/vaghar/phodni:

    1 to 2 tbsp coconut oil or any vegetable oil
    1 tsp mustard seeds
    1 tsp urad dal
    1 sprig curry leaves
    2-3 dry red chillies ( I used small red bor chillies for the tadka)

For the Sambar Masala:

    ½ coconut, grated – will yield about 1 to 1½ cups of coconut
    1 inch ginger, chopped
    5-7 garlic flakes, chopped
    1 small onion, chopped
    12-15 curry leaves
    2 tbsp coriander seeds
    1 tbsp cumin seeds
    ¼ tsp black peppercorns
    ¼ tsp hing
    ¼ tsp methi seeds
    3-4 dry red chilies ( I used 2 kashmiri and 2 guntur red chillies)
    2 to 3 tsp coconut oil or any vegetable oil

Method:

To make the sambar masala:

On a skillet, tava or a shallow frying pan, heat up 2 or 3 tsp oil. Add all the onions and fry till they become light brown. Now add the ginger and garlic and fry for a minute. Add the rest of the spice and fry till they are light brown. Now add the grated coconut and roast it with the rest of the spices till everything is browned and you get a fragrant aroma in your kitchen. Let this mixture cool.

Once, cooled, grind this roasted spice mixture in the grinder with some water. This is how the sambar masala paste will look like.

To make the sambar:

First, boil the tuvar dal till in a pressure cooker with the sliced or chopped onion and hing, till the dal is soft and well cooked. Mash the cooked dal slightly with a spoon when done.

Chop all your vegetables. Add all the vegetables except for the okras (bhindi) to the cooked tuvar dal along with turmeric powder and some water. Give a nice stir to the entire mixture.

Cook the dal with the vegetables until they are half cooked. This takes about 11-12 minutes.

Now add the chopped okra, tamarind pulp, and the ground masala. Add some more water if the sambar has become thick.

Add salt and give the sambar a rolling boil once and then simmer till the veggies are cooked. This will approximately take about 15-16 minutes.

Close the flame when all the ingredients in the sambar have nicely infused with one another and you have a lovely sambar aroma pervading all around in your kitchen. Keep the sambar closed with a lid and move on to the next step of tempering the sambar. Ignore the frothy layer on top of the sambar. When you add the tempering all that disappears.

To prepare the tadka:

In a pan or the tadka utensil, heat oil. Add the mustard seeds and let them pop. Then add all the other ingredients and fry them till they become fragrant. Take care they do not get burnt. Please also ignore the black spots on the tempering utensil. How much I try, I simply cannot get rid of them.

Adding the tadka to the sambar:

Once the tadka is ready, directly pour the hot tadka on the hot sambar.

Immediately, cover the sambar with a lid and let it stay closed for some 5 minutes. We do this at home, so that the flavors and aroma of the tadka gets very well infused with the sambar or dal.

Serving the Sambar:

Give the sambar a standing time of 2-3 hrs. The sambar tastes good when kept for some hours after making it. The taste of a freshly prepared sambar is different than the taste of a sambar which has been made a few hours ago.
Serve the sambar with boiled rice and pappadums, accompanied by a side vegetable dish and a bowl of yogurt or raita. Enjoy.
If there is any leftover sambar, you could have it the next day with dosa, idli, medu vada or dal vada. But keep the leftover sambar in the fridge.

Few Tips for making Kerala Sambar Recipe:

    Do not directly add the aubergines in sambar. Chop them and keep them in salted water for 10-15 mins so that the bitter juices are extracted from them in the salted water.
    The souring agent we use in sambar is generally tamarind. If your tamarind is too sour, than you will have to increase the chillies and salt with it and vice versa. The tamarind, chillies and salt have to balance each other. I came across this tip in Chandra Padmanabhan’s book – Southern Spice: Delicious Vegetarian Recipes from South India. Its a nice book if you are looking for a variety of vegetarian recipes amongst the South Indian Cuisine. Fortunately, whenever I have made sambar, the tamarind has never been too tart and the sambar has never become too sour.
    If you do not have fresh coconut, you could substitute it for dessicated coconut.
    If you are using a lot of mixed vegetables, alter their amount ( that is do not use the quantity of vegetables mentioned in this post) so that there is a balance of the vegetables and dal in the sambar.