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SAMBHAR - The Spicy Soup
This delicious soup is good on moist, rainy days – the kind we’ve been having in the northeast this month! Ingredients are available in both Indian grocery stores and many well-stocked health food stores.
Ingredients:
| ½ cup Toor Dal |
2 Tbsp. Ghee (clarified butter) |
| ½ cup Mung Dal |
½ tsp. Mustard Seeds |
| ¾ cup Carrot, peel & cube |
¾ cup Onion, finely chopped |
| ½ cup Red Pumpkin, peel & cube |
2-3 Tbsp. Sambhar Masala |
3 cups Water to cook the dal
add
salt to your taste |
¼ tsp. Turmeric |
| 2 ½ Tbsp. Jaggery – Raw Sugar |
5 to 6 Curry Leaves |
| ½ tsp. Kokum Extract or lemon |
¼ tsp. Chili Powder* |
| 3 cups Water to make soup |
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*NOTE: Sambhar is quite spicy, so you may want to use less of the suggested amount of chili powder or leave it out completely — to your taste.
Directions:
- Combine the Toor and Mung dal and rinse them in water until the water stays clear — and then drain the entire mixture.
- Next you can wash and peel carrots and pumpkin. Cut both into half inch square pieces.
- Put dal and 3 cups water in a covered dish or inside the pressure cooker. If you don’t use the pressure cooker, cook the dal and vegetables separately. The dal will take more time — so allow for that.
- Add the vegetables, but not more water!
- Cook dal and vegetables until tender, roughly 20 minutes.
- Cut the onion very well into chopped pieces.
- In a large saucepan, heat the ghee. Add mustard seed and asafoetida.
- When mustard seeds pop, add your onion and cook until they turn clear.
- Add sambhar masala, turmeric, curry leaves, chili powder (if you want it HOT!), and cooked vegetable and dal. Mix well.
- Add 3 cups water, and season with salt, raw sugar and kokum extract.
- Allow the soup mixture to boil as the entire ingredients blend for about 5 more minutes.
Sambhar is served in India either on its own as a soup or with idlis, rice or dosas as a dipping sauce. Delicious!
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