Coming from a typical South Indian family, we love our Sambar. My weekend cooking is never done without a good batch of sambar in the making. However simple it might be, a good sambar fills the entire house with a beautiful aroma and that is enough to take you back to the wonderful family lunches growing up.
My sambar guru is my mother-in-law who is an expert in turning anything and everything into sambar 🙂 It is her iconic Sambar Powder that I use, which gives me the perfect tasting sambar. For the starters, it is not filled with preservatives or colors like the packaged stuff. There is a wonderful fragrance to it and yet, it is not too spicy. I shall soon post the recipe of her Sambar Powder but for now, let me get on with this Mullangi Sambar recipe.
Mullangi, white radish in Tamil/Telugu has extreme coolant properties and makes for a great vegetable to add in the Sambar. I love the strong flavor of Mullangi in Sambar, although I know that it is not everyone’s favorite vegetable. Try making this Mullangi Sambar and I am sure your opinion about this vegetable would change instantly. While this sambar goes well with hot rice, it is also perfect with breakfast recipes like idli, dosa or upma. I know I already have posted variations of Sambar recipes here but it is never too late to have as many Sambar recipes in your cooking repertoire.
Instead of cooking the toor dal in pressure cooker, soak the dal for 30 mins in warm water and cook it directly on stove top. The taste is much better but takes a lot of time. Instead of using onions, shallots or madras onions can be used in this recipe. I used ready to use tamarind paste but of using fresh tamarind, soak one small marble sized in warm water and extract the juice. Use it in the place of tamarind extract. It is important not to cut the coriander leaves but tear them with hand before adding to the sambar. Makes Sambar so much more flavorful this way. Instead of making the tempering with oil, adding ½ teaspoon of ghee does wonders to the sambar recipe. A good trick to please your family members. I used my MIL’s Sambar powder (will post the recipe soon), store bought sambar powder works too but the taste is not the exact same.
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