Idli Sambar

It’s a traditional south Indian dish. We love this dish. This should be quiet different from normal sambar. If my mom prepares this dish, we used to have extra idlis and dosas.

You can prepare fresh sambar powder or use any instant powder. This gives nice taste. This goes well with appam, pongal too. Serve with idli/dosa or any tiffin items which goes well with sambar.

Ingredients

Toor Dal – 1 cup

Potato – 2 (Big)

Shallots (Small Onions) – 20

Sliced Green Chilli – 4

Chopped Tomatoes – 2

Tamarind – small sized ball

Turmeric – ½ tsp

Asafoetida – a pinch

Salt to taste

To roast & grind

Coriander Seeds – 1 tsp

Channa Dal – 1 tsp

Red Chillies – 4

Cumin Seeds – 1 tsp

Fenugreek Seeds – ½ tsp

Curry Leaves – few

Asafoetida – ½ tsp

To Temper

Mustard Seeds – 1 tsp

Dry Red Chilli – 2

Urad Dal – ½ tsp

Curry Leaves – few

Coriander Leaves – few

Oil – 2 tsp

Sesame oil – ½ tsp

Method

Soak tamarind in warm water for about 10 to 15 minutes. It helps to extract tamarind juice easily.

Pressure cook toor dal for 5 whistles or till it becomes mushy, with two pinches of asafoetida, turmeric powder, few drops of sesame oil and 2 cups of water.

Wash the potatoes and cut into 4 slices and pressure cook it along with toor dal. Once it done, peel of potato skin and cut into small pieces.

Roast all the ingredients under to roast and grind. Do not burn anything. So roast everything on a low flame. Let it cool down and powder into coarse powder.

In a kadai, heat oil and add small onions then fry till it becomes mushy. Now add green chilli and tomatoes and fry till transparent.

Extract tamarind juice from the tamarind. Dilute it and make it 1 cup of it and add start heating in a pressure cooker/kadai.

Add the fried onions, tomatoes to it. Then add few curry leaves, coriander leaves, salt and bring to boil. Then add mashed or sliced potatoes.

Now add the coarse powder (sambar powder), keep pressure cook for another 2 whistles. If you need, add extra water to avoid lump formation.

In a pan, heat oil add mustard seeds, urad dal, and dry red chilli, curry leaves and coriander leaves. Mix it with sambar.