One of my favourite cookbooks DAKSHIN, by Chandra Padmanabhan had been lying on the counter- top without being used for a long time. I got this as a gift from my MIL 2 years back and have tried various recipes from this book with wonderful results each time. This recipe for Mysore sambhar always caught my attention, since this was a new recipe to me. The only reason I had not tested this was because there was no tamarind in the list of ingredients and sambhar sans tamarind……hmmm? Yesterday, however I decided to go for it. I couldn’t help but add a little bit of tamarind never-the-less. I was quite impressed with the outcome. Though, the tamarind did add that little bit of taste that I like, I am pretty sure the recipe would have been as good if not better even without it.
Tur Dal - 3/4 cup uncooked
Water – 3 cups
Beans – 1 2/3 cups
Potato – 1 medium
Green peas – 1 tbsp
Tamarind – 1/2 lime sized ball
Turmeric – 1/2 tsp
Salt to taste
For the paste:
Dhania - 1 tbsp
Grated coconut - 6 tbsp
Hing - 1/2 tsp
Methi (fenugreek) seeds - 1 tsp
Mustard seeds - 1 tsp
Raw rice (soaked) – 1 tbsp
Red chillies – 6 nos
For tempering:
Mustard seeds – 1 tsp
Cumin - 1 tsp
Red chilli – 1
Curry leaves – 5-6 nos.
Cook the dal and soak the rice in water for about 15 minutes. Cut vegetables to about 1 inch size and boil in water. Add the tamarind and salt when the vegetables are half cooked and let it boil up together till the vegetables are fully cooked. Make a fine paste of all the ingredients listed with minimum water. The original recipe did not have methi (fenugreek) seeds, but I decided to add some for the flavour. Add turmeric and the paste to the veggies and let it simmer up for about 5 minutes on medium flame. Next add the dal and cook the sambhar for another 3-4 minutes. Temper with Mustard, cumin, red chilli and curry leaves and serve hot with rice.
