This sambhar tastes just like hotel sambhar.

Ingredients

1. Chopped veggies (carrots, eggplant,beans)- 4 cups
2. onion medium -1
3. Toor Dal – 3/4 cup
4. Tomatoes – 2
5. Tamarind pulp – 1/2 cup
6. Turmeric – 1/4 teaspoon
7. Mustard seeds – 1
8. Curry leaves – 1 sprig
9. Ghee – 3 tablespoons

To Toast and grind

1. Freshly grated coconut – 3 tablespoons
2. Coriander powder – 1 tablespoon
3. Chana dal – 2 teaspoons
4. Cumin seeds – 1/4 teaspoon
5. Dry Red chillies – 3 (can be adjusted to suit your taste)

Method

• Soak the toor dal in water for 4-5 hours.
• Pressure cook the veggies,finely chopped tomatoes,toor dal,turmeric powder,tamarind pulp,salt with little water.
• You can also cook the dal and veggies seperately, if you want to.This way, you need not worry about overcooking the veggies.In this case ,no need to soak the dal in water.
• Heat a pan.slowly toast the coconut till it turns to a nice caramel brown color and keep it aside.This is a very important step for a delicious sambhar.
• In the same pan ,toast chana dal,cumin seeds,red chillies till you get a nice aroma.
• On a low heat,toast the coriander powder as it may burn easily.If you using whole coriander seeds,you can toast it along with the other ingredients.
• Add a little water to the toasted ingredients and grind it to a fine paste.
• Now ,add the paste to the cooked toordal-veggie mixture and bring it to a boil.Add water if it is too thick.
• For tempering,heat ghee in a pan,add the mustard seeds,curry leaves,finely chopped onion and saute them for few mins.
• Add it to the sambhar,mix well and garnish with cilantro.

Ingredients

• Gingelly oil – 3 tablespoons
• Mustard seeds – 1/2  teaspoon
• Fenugreek seeds – 1/4 teaspoon
• Urad dal – 3/4 teaspoon
• Toor Dal – 1 teaspoon
• Red chillies – 3
• Curry leaves – few
• Sundakkai vathal ( dried turkey berry) – 1 tablespoon
• Urad dal appalam (pappadam) -1 or 2
• Chilli powder – 2 teaspoons ( I use good old sambhar powder)
• Turmeric powder – 1/4 teaspoon
• Tamarind pulp -Less than 1/4 cup ( Adjust  to suit your taste)
• Salt
• Rice flour – 1 teaspoon
• Coconut – 1/4 cup (optional)

Method

1. Heat oil in a pan.Add mustard seeds ,fenugreek seeds,toor dal,urad dal ,red chillies,curry  leaves,Asafoetida and fry for few seconds.
2. Now tear the appalam and add it to the oil.fry for few seconds.
3. Add the dried turkey berry and fry for a minute.It is usually fried separately and added to the kuzambu at the end.But the former works just fine for me.
4. Dilute the tamarind pulp in 2 cups of water.
5. Add the tamarind pulp, chilli powder,turmeric powder,salt and bring it to boil.
6. Let it boil for 5mins.
7. Dilute a teaspoon of rice flour in little water and add it to the kuzambu.This is just to thicken the gravy.
8. If you want to add coconut, grind it in a mixer and add it to the gravy. ( In this case, you can skip step 7)
9. Serve with piping hot rice and appalam.I am not even  going to bother describing the taste.It’s beyond words