Sambhar is a south Indian lentil based vegetable stew which uses tomato and tamarind as a base for the soup. It is quintessential to the south Indian cuisine and one cannot imagine enjoying dosas (rice crepes) or Idlis (steamed rice cake) without this delicious accompaniment. This is a tried and tested recipe for a restaurant style sambhar. Hope you enjoy it !
Everyone loves south Indian food at my place. Whenever we go out to eat Indian food, it is always south Indian food. I find it so fancy : Dosa (rice batter crepes), sambhar (lentil soup) and a variety of chutneys.. what’s not to love !!
My Favorite Sambhar
Now sambhar can be made with various vegetable variations and thus each household develops its own “favorite version”. I am a North Indian and since south Indian meals are just not as common at our place, we have grown up enjoying the slightly north Indian spiced and presumably skewed version of sambhars. Still, there is this one south Indian restaurant in Delhi which has been certified of “Authentic flavors” by one of my south Indian friends and i have to agree that i am absolutely knock-out crazy about it !
They have a wide variety of stuffed dosa and wadas but my favorite item on the menu is their spicy and tangy sambhar. As a child, we often went there for weekend lunches. Each dish would be accompanied by sambhar and an array of chutneys. This year when i went to India, we visited the same restaurant and after some persuasion, i got them to spill the secret on their recipe and today i am sharing that recipe with you. Read on.
Restaurant Style Sambhar
Restaurant Style Sambhar
Ingredients
For this recipe, you need : Pressure cooker, chopping board, knives, grater, ladles, small pan for tempering, mixing spoons
For pressure cooking
- Toor/ Arhar/ Split Pigeon peas – 1/2 cup
- masoor dal/ red lentils -1/2 cup
- 1 inch ginger, grated (optional. This is my personal addition but i really like it !)
- salt -1 tsp
- turmeric powder-1 tsp
- potato-1 medium , peeled and cut into cubes
- carrots-1/2 cup , chopped
- pumpkin-1/2 cup , cut into cubes
- bringal/ eggplants-1/2 cup , cut into cubes
- 5-6 french beans, cut into chunks
- 3-4 drumsticks pieces (optional)
- water-4 cups
Tempering/ Tadka
- onion-1 medium , finely chopped
- tomatoes-2 medium , finely chopped
- oil -1 tablespoons
- Ghee/ clarified butter -1 tablespoon
- asafoetida -1/2 tsp
- mustard seeds -1 tsp
- 5-6 curry leaves
- salt -1 tsp
- turmeric powder -1/2 tsp
- tamarind paste / seedless tamarind soaked in some warm water-2 tablespoons
- sambhar powder (store bought/ homemade) -1 tablespoon
- water-2 cups
Method
- Wash the lentils in enough water couple of times. Put the washed lentils in the pressure cooker. Add in the water and all the other ingredients for the pressure cooking in the cooker and cook on high for 2 whistles. After the second whistle, simmer the cooker for 10 minutes. The dal should be soft, mushy and almost dissolved by this time. We are looking for a mushy texture. If the dal is soft but not mushy, take a masher or a big spoon and mash the dal a little without breaking the vegetables too much. This is a important step.
- In a separate pan, we will prepare the tempering/ tadka. Begin with adding oil and bring to heat.When the oil is hot, add in the asafoetida, mustard seeds, curry leaves and saute till the mustard seeds begin to splutter.
- Now, add in the chopped onion and saute for a couple of minutes or till the onions are golden brown.
- Add the tomatoes, turmeric powder, salt, tamarind paste, sambhar powder and mix. Cook for a couple of minutes or till the tomatoes are tender and cooked. Mash the tomatoes with a big spoon till smooth. Add in water and mix well. Let it come to boil.
- Add this tempering in the mashed dal and mix well. Bring to heat and let the dal boil. Once boiled, add in the ghee and mix. The sambhar is ready to be served.
Serve along with dosas, idli, vadas, uttapams or upma.
Did you notice that i used a mix of 2 dals for this sambhar? Usually it is prepared only using the toor dal but as i learnt from this restaurant recipe, the red lentils help in having a lighter sambhar without altering the flavor and it does not thicken up the sambhar as quickly.
Another trick i learnt is that it is important to mash the lentils and have almost a paste consistency when you cook the lentils. I always notice that the restaurant sambhars are very thin soup like consistency which works well with dunking the idlis or to enjoy with rice. this sambhar was served with the masala vadas and the family loved it ! I plan to include more south Indian recipes on the blog soon ! You should try out this sambhar too.
Have any more tricks to share? Would love to hear.
Some of the south Indian recipes on my blog :
I’ve never had sambhar, but I’m sure I’d like it!
Oh u must try it ! This is the southindianfood 101… since u like Indian flavour, you might like this too 🙂
Instead of potatoes, you can use bottle gourd too. I know, how in our food, almost everything has potatoes in it. So just to give myself a break from potatoes, I replace them with bottle gourd. The taste doesn’t get altered even one bit. And, it’s a healthier version too!
Hi Prerna. Thanks for stopping by. I appreciate your viewpoint. I personally do not use potatoes in most dishes (except when i am deliberately preparing a potato dish) but i guess for this quantity which serves 6 people, 1 medium potato is really not adding or taking away from the calories. Also, i do use lauki/bottle gourd in sambhar all the time but i find that they dissolve in the sambhar whereas potatoes still hold the form better and adds to that extra bite in the sambhar. Recently i learnt from a friend that you can make sambhar using radish too. Try it out sometime ! 🙂
Pingback: Steamed Rice Idlis – Divine Spice Box