Idli Sambar | Tiffin Sambar Recipe
Servings: 4 people
Ingredients
- Shallot onions- 1 cup
- Carrot - 1 or 2
- Tamarind- Gooseberry sized
- Jaggery- Small piece or 1 tsp jaggery powder
- Salt- 2 tsp
- Coriander leaves- Handful
To grind
- Fresh grated coconut- 1/2 cup
- Pigeon pea lentil(Toor dal)- 2 tsp
- Chick pea lentil (Chana dal)- 1 tsp
- Coriander seeds- 2 tsp
- Raw rice- 1.5 tsp
- Pepper corns- 1/2 tsp
- Fenugreek seeds- 1/2 tsp
- Green chillies- 1 no.
- Red chillies (byadagi)- 2 or 3 nos .
- Curry leaves- Few
- Tomato- 1 no.
- Asafoetida- Chickpea sized
- Cinnamon- 1" piece
- Cooking oil- 4 tsp to roast spices
Instructions
Preparation
- Peel the shallots and chop carrot and tomato in to small pieces.
- Soak tamarind in 1/4 cup water for about 10 minutes and extract it's juice discarding the residue.
Method
- Add the chopped carrot and peeled shallots in a cooking vessel along with one or two cups of water. Cook the vegetables in medium flame till they turn soft and delicate.
- Till the time vegetables are cooking, proceed to roasting spices. Heat a wok or kadai adding oil. Include red chillies, asafoetida and coriander seeds. Saute them together and roast till the coriander seed's color deepen a bit.
- Then include both the lentils and stir till they turn slightly brown. Continue adding pepper corns, raw rice, fenugreek seeds and curry leaves to the same wok. Stir for some time. Finally include grated coconut, green chilly, cinnamon and chopped tomato one after the other. Switch off once they are warm.
- Transfer all the roasted ingredients in to a blender or mixer and grind to smooth paste. As the masala for sambar is ready, check the vegetables for done-ness. Add tamarind extract and jaggery at this stage.
- Add the ground masala to the vegetables that are cooked. Combine well and include enough water to obtain the idli sambar consistency. Add required salt and bring it to boil. Let the sambar boil for 3 minutes. Garnish with some chopped coriander leaves.
- Aromatic and drool-worthy tiffin sambar or Idli sambar is ready. Serve it with any tiffin like idli, dosa and uttappam.
Notes
- Be careful while roasting the spices. Do not let them burn. Keeping flame low and stirring constantly, you can avoid burning.
- The red chillies that I have used here are not spicy at all, they just give nice color to the sambar. The green chilly and pepper corns give spiciness to the sambar. So use these spice providers wisely as per your taste preferences.
- You can include other vegetables like potato, peas etc to the sambar.
- The consistency of the idli sambar should be thinner than regular curries. So add water accordingly.