Sambar is a staple part of most South Indian meals. Every family has their own personal recipe/touch to making this fantastic daal. The amazing part is that it is so flavorful and goes so beautifully with a host of things like Dosa, Idli, Rice, Vadas.
The winter melon, also called white gourd,ash gourd, “fuzzy gourd”, or “fuzzy melon”, is a vine grown for its very large fruit, eaten as a vegetable when mature. It is the only member of the genus Benincasa. The fruit is fuzzy when young. The immature melon has thick white flesh that is sweet when eaten. By maturity, the fruit loses its hairs and develops a waxy coating, giving rise to the name wax gourd, and providing a long shelf life. The melon may grow as large as 80 cm in length. Although the fruit is referred to as a “melon,” the fully grown crop is not sweet. Originally cultivated in Southeast Asia, the winter melon is now widely grown in East Asia and South Asia as well.
Ingredients
1. Fuzzy melon – 1
2. Onions medium size - 1
(if you have Shallots then take 10 now (sambar onions ))
3. Diced ripen tomato – 1
4. Garlic – 2 cloves
5. Toor dal – 1 cup
6. Turmeric powder – 1/4 tsp
7. Red chili powder – 1/2 or 1 tsp
8. Coriander /dhania powder – 2 tsp
9. Salt as needed
10. Tamarind juice 3 tbsp
11. Oil – 3 tsp
12. Dry red chili -5 now
13. Mustard ¼ tsp
14. Cumin seeds ¼ tsp
15. Fennugreek seeds ¼ tsp
17. Curry leaves 6 now
18. Asafoetida ¼ tsp
19. Coriander leaves 3 stks
Preparation
1. Soak Toor dal in enough water for atleast 1/2 hour.
2. Wash the melon, peel the skin compleletely, cut them into big cubes. Roughly chop onions and crush the garlic. Now in a pressure pan combine washed toor dal, cubed melon pieces, chopped onion, garlic, tomatoes, tumeric powder, red chili powder, corriander powder, little salt and 2 cups of water. Pressure cook upto 2 whistles and switch off.
3. Take pan, heat oil splutter mustard, fenugreek seeds, cumin seeds, dry red chili and curry leaves.
4. Sprinkle asafoetida and add the cooked veggie dal mixture, tamarind juice and salt.
5. Bring it to boil, garnish with coriander leaves and switch off. Serve with steaming hot rice topped with ghee.
Yellow squash belong to the Gourd family or categorized under Summer squash varieties. These fruits are sweet mild in flavour with soft flesh and tender skin and are quite versatile for any preparation. Here is simple dal recipe using this.
Ingredients
1. Toor Dal – 1 cup
2. Yellow squash – 1
3. Onion ( chopped) – 1
4. Tomato (chopped) – 1
5. Ginger (finely chopped) – a little
6. Green chili (slit open) – 7
7. Turmeric – 1/4 tsp
8. Asafoetida – 1/4 tsp
9. Mustard – 1/2 tsp
10. Cumin seeds – 1/2 tsp
11. Dry red chili (for tempering) – 2
12. Curry leaves
13. Salt to taste
14. Oil /ghee
Preparation
1. Soak Toor dal for atleast 1/2 hour, wash and drain.
2. Wash the squash, lightly scrape the skin (optional), chop them into big cubes.
3. Combine soaked toor dal, chopped onions, tomatoes, slit open green chili, cubed squash, turmeric, salt and 2 cups of water.
4. Pressure cook upto two whistles and let the steam release completely.
5. Heat up oil / ghee in a small pan, splutter mustard, cumin seeds, dry red chili and curry leaves. When the sizzle stops sprinkle asafoetida and add the chopped ginger. Temper the cooked dal with the toasted spices and serve with rice topped with ghee.
Just to Share with you…..
This recipe I learnt from my mother-in-law. This is almost a different recipe. I hope most of you might not have tried this before. This is a typical village recipe. It tastes very good with small onions and big size brinjal. The seeds of the big brinjal gives a very good look. Here in my post I have used eggplant and big onions. The speciality of this curry is we are going to use raw puli/tamarind water.
Baked Eggplant
Ingredients for Eggplant
Sutta Katharikkai curry
Ingredients
1. Eggplant big size – 1
2. Onion big size – 1
3. Green chillies – 10
4. Tamarind – 1 lemon size
5. Oil - 2 tsp
6. Mustard seeds – 1/4 tsp
7. Curry leaves
For Powder
1. Corriander seeds - 1 tsp
2. Cumin seeds/jeera – 1 tsp
Preparation
1. Cook eggplant on top of burner flame and peel the skin and mash it with hand. Another method is coat oil on eggplant’s skin and bake in traditional oven for 45 mins or until done. Peel the skin off and mash the eggplant with hand. If it didn’t get mashed properly then use blender and give 1 or 2 whisks. Be careful not to paste it. If you paste it your recipe will get spoiled. Transfer this into bowl.
2. Heat oil in kadai. Add mustard seeds and curry leaves. Add fine chopped onions and green chillies.
3. To this, add the powder made using the ingredients given under For Powder.
4. Fry all these well and then transfer all this into bowl which has mashed eggplant.
5. Take the thick tamarind extract from the tamarind mentioned and add this to bowl.
6. Add salt to taste and your curry is now ready to serve.
Tips
Tamaraind extract should be very thick like dosa batter consistency otherwise this recipe will be ruined.
Just to Share with you………..
In Tamilnadu in most of the functions the lunch menu includes vathaKuzhambu. I know this from only that. Vatral Kuzhambu is an authentic South Indian recipe. Vatrals are nothing but sun dried vegetables. If you make the same gravy/kulumbu with fresh veetables then it is called puli kulumbu. It can be made with either one variety or a combination of different vatrals and fresh vegetables. Most popular vathals are Sundakkai, manathakkali, brinjal and bitter gourd and kothavarangai.
This recipe preparation is easy when you have ready made sambar powder or vatha kuzhambu powder on hand. If you like to prepare your own vatha kulumbu click the link and check it out for the preparation.
Karakulmbu
Ingredients:
1. Gingely oil – 5 tsps
2. Mustard – 1/2 tsp
3. Fenugreek seeds – 1/2 tsp
4. Channa dal – 1/2 tsp
5. Asefotida/perungayam powder – a pinch
6. Curry leaves – 1 kothu
7. Redchilli/Vara Milagai – 2
8. Any Vatral – 1/2 cup
9. Sambar powder – 2 tsp
10. Turmeric powder – a little
11. Puli water/Tamarind extract – 2 cups ( medium thickness)
Preparation
1. Heat oil in the kadai. Ginelly oil is the only recomended oil for this to get authentic taste and flavour. Also this kulumbu requires more oil than other veg curries.
2. Splatter mustard,fenugreek,channa dal,urad dal,red chilli and curry leaves one by one.
3. Add vathal (dried vegetable) to it and fry well.
4. Add sambar powder and little turmeric powder to it and fry well.
5. Add little Hing/Perungayam powder for nice aroma.
6. Now to this add tamarind extract and reuired salt. Bring it to boil for 10-15 mins until the conistency becomes half.
Serve with hot rice.
Just to share with you……
My native is Madathukulam. Amaravathi Dam,Kutharayar Dam and Thirumoorthi Dam are some of the dams nearby. We used to get Fish from these dams. I never had Vanjaram fish before my marriage. I heard and saw this fish when I got married and we were in Chennai. We were in WestMambalam that time. Our house owner aunty’s first daughter got married and few days after marriage aunty invited her daughter and her in-laws for virunthu(feast). She bought Vanjaram/King fish and marinated with puli water and other ingredients for fry and after that she told her relatives to cook lunch and she went to her daughters house to bring them to her place. When her relatives tried frying it didn’t come well and all the slices got broken into pieces. This is when I saw king fish for the first time in my life. She came to our house and asked what to do. My mom was with me at that time we both went and no body knows how to fix that. The guests were on their way. Suddenly I told them to mash the fish and took out all the bones. We fine chopped the onion, green chilles and fried these in pan and then we added the fish and did like the way we make egg poriyal or egg burji. It tasted so good with onion, chillies and the marination which aunty did. That time I don’t know about sura puttu. Now I can relate that proriyal to puttu with little pulippu taste. The guests had. The hit item on that day was that fish poriyal. When ever I see Vanjaram fish /King fish this incident will come to my mind immediately. Today I made kulambu with Vanjaran which I am going to explain you below.
Fish Kulumbu
Ingredients
1. Oil – 4 tsps
2. Sombu - 1/2 tsp
3. Venthaym/Fenugreek/Methi seeds – 1/2 tsp
4. Poondu/Garlic – 5 cloves
5. Curry leaves
6. Onion – 1 mediaum size
7. Tomato -3 medium size
8. Thick tamarind extrct – 1/2 cup
9. Corriander powder – 3 tsp
10. Chilli powder – 2 tsp
11. Turmeric powder – 1/4 tsp
12. Any fish – 1/2 kg
13. Salt as needed
Preparation
1. Heat oil in wide mouth kadai. Splutter sombu,venthayam ,garlic and curry leaves by adding one by one.
2. Add finely chopped onion and fry well .
3. Add finely chopped tomoto and fry well. Add salt at this stage so that it gets fried well.
4. Add tuemeric powder,corriander powder and chilli powder and fry well.
5. Cook this mixture very will until it comes to thokku consistency. Based on this stage only your gravey gets color and taste.
6. Now add Tamarind extract . Add water along with it to desired consistency and bring it to boil (atleast 10 mins) until the oil seperates out.
7. At this stage add fish and cook in slow flame for 5 mins. Garnish it with corriander leaves.