A simple sambhar and a break!

As I already posted about my trip to India, you all must be knowing by now how excited I am. I am leaving today and will be back after a month. I will try to post as frequently as possible but you know how it works on vacation. But surely I will keep myself updated and try to post often. Before leaving I wanted to post a very simple recipe which I can send to JFI-Jihva for Tamarind. Yes, it is the South Indian way of making Sambhar, a gravy using tamarind which can be eaten with plain rice.

Ingredients:
Tamarind (Lemon size)
1 cup of Toor Dal (yellow split peas)
1/2 cup of onions finely chopped
1/2 cup of Tomatoes finely chopped
1 tsp of Cumin seeds (jeera)
1 tsp of mustard
a pinch of Hing powder
1 tsp of turmeric powder
2 tsp of sambhar powder
salt to taste
1 tsp of oil
1 strand of curry leaves
1/2 cup of vegetable (Carrots or pumpkin or ladies finger or any veg of your choice)

Method:

Soak the tamarind in water for 1 hr. After 1 hr, take the tamarind juice. To know how to take the tamarind juice check out this how to make tamarind juice video.

In a pressure cooker, cook the toor dal with turmeric powder and enough water for 3 hisses. Let it cool.

Now, in a pan, add a tsp of oil, mustard seeds. When the seeds pops, add hing, cumin seeds and curry leaves.

Optional: Add the vegetable of your choice, add some water and let it cook for 5 min. If you add carrots it becomes carrot sambhar, if ladies finger then it becomes ladies finger... if no vegies then it becomes plain sambhar. Easy huh?

Add onions and saute them till they become light brown. Add tomatoes and saute them for few seconds.

Add the tamarind extract and add salt. Let it come to a boil. Now add some water add let it boil.

Now add the sambhar powder/chilli powder, when it comes to a boil switch off the stove and serve hot.

Here is the link to the JFI main page which was started by Indira of Mahanadi

By the way, Do not forget to participate in Eat Healthy-Fiber Rich Event. which ends on 14th Jun,Midnight CST.