Vendhaya Keerai Sambar / Methi Sambar

After almost 350 posts and three years of writing about South-Indian food, I finally get to sambar, the most ubiquitous of all South-Indian foods. What a cardinal sin this is! I have no excuse for putting off this post for so long, other than mere intimidation and self-doubt.

 Do I know enough about making a good pot of precious sambar? Good enough, at this point. But there's always things to learn and improvise.

Anyway, sambar is a basic lentil gravy/stew that is flavored with sour tamarind extract, vegetables or greens, spiced with a rich set of spices that make sambar powder, and seasoned with ghee or coconut oil to make a truly one-of-a-kind dish.

The recipe I am sharing today is the most basic form of sambar - no frills attached. This is the kind that is made almost every single day in most families in South India. In subsequent posts, I will write about slightly more nuanced versions of sambar.

Making sambar is all about knowing how much water to add. Water? Yes, water :). You can measure the water/liquid you add today and try to replicate it tomorrow, but if the chemistry is not just right, you will upset the sambar Gods. I am not saying this to make it seem like this is an unconquerable, finicky, complicated dish! But just to highlight the fact that although the procedure is simple and straightforward, there is a certain amount of skill (and a rabbit's foot) that is required to make a pot of sambar that truly balances all the spices, tartness, and flavors from the vegetables such that it hits all the right notes on your palate. But, worry not, I have a little trick that I mention in the end to make sure you can work around the uncertainties of sambar :)

Sambar is usually prepared with vegetables and very rarely prepared with greens such as fenugreek leaves. As I have mentioned before, fenugreek leaves are also nutrient rich like most greens. They have a slightly bitter taste to them, so stewing them in sambar with tamarind juice and spices is a great way to cut down the bitterness. But the leaves also have a nice aroma, so the whole dish becomes infused with a lovely aroma, thanks to the greens.

Please refer to the Glossary for more details on the Indian ingredients listed here.

Ingredients (serves 4-5):

1. 1 cup washed and chopped fenugreek leaves / methi leaves / vendhaya keerai
2. 3/4 cup toor dal / thuvaram paruppu / yellow lentils, uncooked
3. A lime sized (1.5") ball of tamarind soaked in 1 cup of hot water for 30 minutes
4. 2 heaped teaspoons sambar powder
5. 1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
6. 1 teaspoon salt, or as needed
7. 1 tablespoon clarified butter / coconut oil / vegetable oil (highly recommend using either coconut oil or ghee/clarified butter)
8. 1 teaspoon black mustard seeds
9. 1/4 cup chopped coriander leaves
10. a few sprigs of curry leaves
11. 1/4 teaspoon hing / asafoetida
12. 1/4 teaspoon fenugreek seeds / vendhayam
13. 2 teaspoons rice flour
14. 1 tablespoon sesame oil

Preparation:

1. Cook the toor dal with 2.5 cups of water and turmeric powder for 3-4 whistles on a pressure cooker. When the pressure settles, whisk the dal to make it homogenous.
2. When the dal is cooking, extract tamarind juice from the soaked tamarind. Add 1/2 cup more warm water and extract more juice.
3. Heat a tablespoon of sesame oil in a medium-sauce pan. Add the fenugreek leaves and fry/saute for a few minutes until the leaves begin to wilt. 
4. Add the tamarind juice to the fenugreek leaves. Add 1/2 cup of water, sambar powder and salt and boil the mixture for 15-20 minutes (on medium heat) or until the tamarind doesn't smell raw and the fenugreek leaves are cooked (if adding vegetables check they are done). 
5. Add the cooked dal and mix well and boil for anther 5-7 minutes until the dal doesn't smell raw. If the sambar looks thick, add a little water and mix.
6. If the sambar is watery, or if you would like to thicken the sambar more, make a paste out of the rice flour (by adding a little water) and whisk it well into the sambar. Heat on low heat for 5 minutes until the sambar thickens. Remove from heat.
7. Season by tempering the following. Heat either ghee or coconut oil in a small pan. When hot, splutter mustard seeds. Then, add fenugreek seeds, curry leaves, and hing, stir for a couple seconds and add to the sambar. Garnish with coriander leaves. 

Serve with rice or quinoa for a lovely meal.

Adaptation:

This is the basic method of preparing any kind of sambar. If you are adding vegetables instead of leafy greens,  you can either directly stew the vegetables (without frying or sauteing them) in the tamarind juice, or you can stir-fry the vegetable/s with some sambar powder before adding the tamarind juice. This is especially applicable while making onion sambar, as it boosts the flavor of the dish if you stir-fry the onion and then stew it in the tamarind juice.

A Trick to ensure great consistency:
Consistency is always a tricky issue with sambar, especially so for beginners. The first few times you try sambar, it may either end up watery or too thick, and in your attempts at equalizing the consistency, you will end up diluting a flavor or two. So, a trick that one of my friends taught me was to do this:
Instead of boiling the vegetables in tamarind extract and then finally adding the cooked lentils, do the opposite. First cook the lentils. Add the tamarind extract directly to it along with the veggies, greens, spices etc. and follow the same procedure - boil/cook until veggies are done and season. You get to effectively control the liquid and consistency of the sambar because you begin with the dal, and you get a much mushier dal that is fully incorporated with the veggies, so this sambar tends to be more rich and thick, and tastes just the same.

I have often followed this procedure when I can't afford to make any mistakes with my sambar in front of tough critics and guests, and thankfully, the reviews have always been positive! So people don't realize your little trick :)