Tag Archives: South Indian

Recipes: Sambar without using Sambar Powder

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I usually get my stash of Sambar Powder from my mum who makes it at home, either when we go down to India or she comes to Singapore. But because of travel restrictions in the past 18 months and no travel happening, as expected, my stock of Sambar powder finally finished. I then asked my mother for the recipe to make the powder, but because she told me it was a tedious process, I kept putting it off. And then last month, I needed to make Sambar and with no powder available, I decided to use the recipe that mother gave me and tweaked it slightly to make a paste which I used to make the Sambar. It was super tasty and I thought it’s a good alternative to those who don’t have access to a good quality powder.

For this recipe, I used raw bananas, but you can use any other vegetable you like including potatoes, carrots, pumpkins, bell peppers etc.

Sambar without using Sambar Powder

Ingredients:

  • 1 lemon sized ball of tamarind, soaked in hot water for 20-30 minutes
  • 1 cup tuvar dal, soaked in warm water for 20 minutes
  • 1 cup peeled and chopped raw bananas, cut in bite sized pieces which are then soaked in a bowl of water to prevent oxidation
  • ¾ tsp chana dal
  • 1 tsp tuvar dal
  • 1 tsp coriander seeds
  • 4-5 dried red chillies (reduce this amount if you want it less spicy)
  • 2 tbsp desiccated coconut
  • ½ tsp peppercorns
  • ¼ tsp fenugreek seeds
  • 1 tbsp jaggery powder (You can use brown sugar instead, but the taste would not be the same)
  • 1 tsp mustard seeds
  • 1/8 tsp asafoetida
  • 2 tsp oil
  • Salt to taste

Method:

  • Heat 1 tsp oil in a pan and in the following order fry the spices for the sambar paste, making sure you fry each ingredient for about 30 seconds before adding the next ingredient. Fry the tuvar dal, chana dal, coriander seeds, dried red chillies, coconut, peppercorns and fenugreek seeds and let the dal become brown and the coconut become brown and crisp and loses all water. Do not let them burn. Take off from the flame and let it cool.
  • Once cool, blend with some water to a fine paste. You can also powder this and use it as a powder.
  • Cook the tuvar dal in a pressure cooker or on the stovetop and whisk it to a fine paste and keep aside.
  • Mash the tamarind and strain it to get just the water and thin it to get the preferred sourness.
  • In the same pan, heat the balance 1 tsp oil and when the oil warms up, add the mustard seeds and let them pop. Then add the asafoetida and the turmeric powder and stir for a couple of seconds.
  • Now add the peeled, chopped and soaked raw banana pieces and stir for a few minutes.
  • Add half a cup of water, just enough to cover the bananas (or any of the vegetables used) and let it cook covered for about 5-10 minutes, until the vegetables are about half cooked.
  • Now add the sambar powder or paste, depending on how you have blended it and the tamarind water as well as the jaggery powder and salt and cook until the vegetables are almost cooked, like about 90%.
  • At this point, add the cooked dal and check for seasoning and add what seems to be missing.
  • Let it boil together in a medium boil for another 5 minutes, garnish with coriander leaves and serve hot with rice and as an accompaniment to a South Indian meal.

Recipes: Raw Mango Pachadi

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On the occasion of the Tamil New Year, we usually make the raw mango pachadi. This traditional dish is made on the occasion is packed with 6 flavour of tastes like sweet, salt, spicy, bitter, sour and astringent. It is believed that eating this on the new year will ensure that the year ahead will be perfectly balanced with all flavours infused in your life. The dish signifies that life is a combination of different emotions like good, bad, happy, sorrow, victory and defeat and we have to face them equally. Jaggery is used for sweet, salt for salty, dried red chilli for spicy, neem flower or fenureek seeds for bitter, raw mango for sour and turmeric for astringent.

I made this recipe for the first time earlier this year during the Tamil New Year. Actually what triggered this recipe was my mother moaning that she had not been able to get hold of raw mangoes because of the situation in Mumbai and so since I had some mangoes, I decided to make them. It was a huge hit in my house and since then, I have made it a few more times, and each time, it has been gobbled up soon. It’s a very easy recipe and from start to end, should not take more than 30 minutes.

Raw Mango Pachadi

Ingredients:

  • 2 medium sized raw mangoes
  • ½ cup grated jaggery, (more or less depending on the sourness of the mangoes)
  • ¼ tsp turmeric powder
  • 1 pinch salt
  • 1 tsp oil
  • 1 tsp mustard seeds
  • ¼ tsp fenugreek seeds or 1 tbsp fresh or dried neem flowers
  • 2 dried red chillies, broken into half each

Method:

  • Peel and chop the mangoes into largish pieces and then in a pan, add a bit of water, just enough to cover the mangoes, and the turmeric and cook till the mangoes are cooked, but still retain some of their shape.
  • While the mangoes are cooking, in a separate pan, add the jaggery and 1-2 tbsps of water and let the jaggery dissolve into a syrup. Let the syrup cool down.
  • When the mangoes are cooked, strain the jaggery syrup into the mangoes using a strainer. This is so that none of the impurities found in the jaggery make their way to the dish.
  • Let the mangoes and jaggery come to a nice rolling boil. Add the salt, stir well and switch off the gas.
  • Using a smaller skillet, heat the oil and when the oil becomes warm, add the mustard seeds, fenugreek seeds or neem flowers, dried red chillies and stir for a few seconds each before you add the next ingredient. Stir for about 10 seconds in total and pour this over the mango pachadi.
  • Serve hot with any south Indian meal and enjoy a beautiful blend of flavours.
  • Served cold, this can also be served as a cold salad or starter or even a dip with your starter.
  • You can also cook the mangoes in a pressure cooker. If using a pressure cooker, cook the mango with a bit of water and turmeric and pressure cook for 2 whistles.

Recipes: Mixed Pumpkin Poritcha Kozambu

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Tamil Brahmin cooking is generally considered to be quite healthy and satvik. In our everyday cooking, onions and garlic are generally not used and there are people even today who can’t stand the smell of garlic being cooked. My grandmother is one of them. When we make anything with garlic, she generally leaves the kitchen and in fact goes to the room furthest away from the kitchen so the smell does not bother her.

A Poritcha Kozambu is something like a stew which is made by cooking a mixture of vegetables with a paste made of coconut, urad dal and peppercorns and some cooked dal. I had some yellow and orange pumpkin left over when I made some Avial and these were too little to make something with just one of them. So I decided to combine the two to make a fusion kozambu and kootu out of the two vegetables. Generally pumpkins are not used for a poritcha kozambu but this recipe was a huge success. I loved it as did S and the children and this recipe will find its way to my cooking repertoire and I will make it often.

Mixed Pumpkin Poritcha Kozambu

Ingredients:
½ yellow pumpkin, peeled and chopped into bite-sized pieces
½ white pumpkin, peeled and chopped into bite-sized pieces
1 cup toor dal,
½ tsp turmeric powder
3 tbsp coconut
1 tsp broken urad dal
3-4 dried red chillies
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp black peppercorns
1 tbsp tamarind paste
1 tbsp oil
Salt to taste
Chopped coriander leaves to garnish

Method:
Wash the toor dal and soak in hot water for 10 minutes. Then pressure cook the dal with ¼ tsp turmeric powder until it is soft and mushy. Once the pressure reduces and you are able to open the cooker, mash the dal well and keep aside.
Heat the oil in a small skillet and when it warms up, add the cumin seeds, dried red chillies, urad dal, and pepper corns and fry till the urad dal changes colour to a nice brown. Then add the grated coconut and stir constantly until the coconut is brown and completely devoid of water. Keep aside and let it cool.
When the coconut is cool, grind it completely to a smooth paste using water as needed.
In the same pan, add the chopped pumpkins, ¼ tsp turmeric powder and some salt and cook until the pumpkins are about 70% cooked.
When the pumpkins are cooked, but still have a bite to them, add the mashed dal and the coconut paste and stir well.
Add the tamarind paste and check for seasoning. Let it boil for about 5-7 minutes.
Garnish with coriander leaves and serve hot over steamed rice and a stir fried vegetable of your choice.

Recipes: Paruppu Payasam aka Moongdal Payasam

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A very simple traditional recipe which does not take much time to prepare, I made this payasam the day after Avani Avittam, when S and BB had to say the Gayatri Japam 1008 times. It is traditional to make a sweet on this day, and since I didn’t have much time in the morning, I decided to go with this simple and tasty sweet dish.

Paruppu Payasam

Ingredients:
1 litre milk, boiled and cooled
1/3 cup moong dal
10-15 cashewnuts, halved
¼ to ½ cup powdered Jaggery or brown sugar
1 tbsp ghee
1/8 tsp cardamom powder
Water as required

Method:
Heat a pan and once the pan is warm, dry roast the moong dal till you get a a lovely fragrance. Make sure you don’t over-roast it and burn it. Remove from the pan and keep aside.

Fry the cashewnuts in the ghee until they are nice and brown and keep aside.
In a small pressure cooker or a container which you can put inside the cooker, mix the roasted moong dal with some milk and water and pressure cook it for some 3-4 whistles. Open the cooker when it cools down and lightly mash the dal.

If you are doing this on a stove top, the method is the same, only keep an eye on the dal when it is cooking and top up milk or water as needed and then lightly mash the dal.
Once the dal has been mashed up a bit, add in the powdered jaggery and mix well.

Put this back on the flame and then add the balance boiled and cooled milk and cook on a low flame for another 5 minutes until the milk, dal and jaggery gets completely mixed together.

Now sprinkle the cardamom powder and the fried cashewnuts along with the ghee.

Do a taste test and serve hot or cold. If you are making this as an offering, then of course, you can’t taste it. We prefer eating this cold as I feel this enhances the taste, but this is personal preference.

You can also make this with only milk to get a richer taste. Also some people use coconut milk plus normal milk, but I don’t make this version.

Recipes: Arachavitta Vellai Pooshnikkai Sambar or Ground White Pumpkin Sambar

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This recipe initially started its life as an experiment, but it was quite successful and the resulting sambar was so tasty, I was pleasantly surprised. While any arachavitta or ground sambar is yummy, the addition of the white pumpkin or Winter Melon or Ash Gourd as its called in English and Vellai Pooshnikkai in Tamil elevated this recipe. This recipe is perfect for the days you can’t use onions in your recipe. I have blogged about both Arachivitta Sambar and White Pumpkin Rasavangi and this is a lovely marriage between the two. So let’s go to the recipe.

Arachavitta Vellai Pooshnikkai Sambar or Ground White Pumpkin/Ash Groud/Winter Melon Sambar

Ingredients:

  • 2 cups white pumpkin, peeled, the seeds removed and cut into 1 inch cubes
  • 1 lemon sized piece of tamarind, soaked in hot water for 30-40 minutes
  • 1 cup toor dal
  • 2 tbsp oil
  • 1 tsp mustard seeds
  • 1 tbsp chana dal
  • 2 tbsps coriander seeds
  • 6-8 dried red chillies
  • ¼ cup fresh grated coconut
  • 1 tbsp sambar powder (optional)
  • 1-2 tbsp jaggery (optional)
  • Salt to taste
  • 2 tbsp finely chopped coriander leaves to garnish

Method:

  • In a small pressure cooker, pressure cook the toor dal with ¼ tsp turmeric powder till it is soft and the dal has broken down complety. This usually will take around 3 whistles in the cooker. When the pressure reduces, open the cover of the cooker and then whisk the dal well. Keep aside.
  • Mash the tamarind when it becomes cool to touch and then squeeze tamarind and drain the water so the fibres get separated and you have the water. Alternatively use 3-4 tbsp tamarind paste which you can get at any Indian store.
  • Heat 1 tbsp oil in a small pan and put the chana dal, coriander seeds and dried red chillies and stir a while till the chana dal starts to brown. At this point add the fresh grated coconut and constantly stir until all the water from the coconut dries up and you have a crisp brown coconut with no water whatsoever. Note that if there is any water left in this, your sambar may spoil later in the day.
  • Once this coconut mixture is cool, grind it to a fine paste using some water in a blender. Make sure the paste is as fine as you can make it.
  • In a large pan, heat the balance 1 tbsp oil and when the oil is warm, add the mustard seeds and when the seeds pop, add the chopped white pumpkin and cook the cubes for about 5 minutes.
  • Then add the tamarind water which has been thinned to suit your taste and add salt to taste. You can also add sambar powder at this point if you want. Also add the jaggery if you are using here.
  • Let the white pumpkin cook until it is cooked, but still has a bite to it.
  • At this point, add the ground paste and the cooked dal and cook for another 5-10 minutes.
  • Check for seasoning at this point before switching off the gas.
  • Garnish with coriander leaves and serve hot with plain rice, white or brown and a curry of your choice.
  • This is also very tasty with any South Indian food like Upma, Idli or Dosai.