Eating to lose weight is my passion and Sambar is my favorite curry. It will become your favorite too once you know how to prepare it. Sambar is the south Indian recipe and it contains protein, most of the vitamins, loads of anti-oxidants and a good deal of fiber. For health freak like me, it goes smoothly with cooked brown rice. You can make unlimited varieties of Sambar with your choices of vegetables. Here, I explain ladies finger sambar though, you can replace ladies finger with any other vegetable or any combination of vegetables. For example, drumstick+mango, carrot+beans, carrot+beans+beet+cabbage, bottle gourd, pumpkin - any vegetable will make your sambar delicious with different taste.Ingredients:
Red Gram Dhal - 200 grams (for 4 servings)
Onions - 3 or shallots - 5
Tomatoes - 2
Green chillies - 5
Red Chillies-5
Garlic - 10 cloves
Brinjal (Eggplant) - 2
Ladies finger (Okra) - 250 grams
Red chilly powder - 1 tablespoon
Sambar powder - 1 tablespoon
Tamarind paste - 1 tablespoon
Oil - 1/2 tablespoon
Mustard seeds - 1/2 teaspoon
Hing powder - 1/2 teaspoon
Salt - to taste
Coriander and curry leaves
Directions:
Cook the red gram dhal until it become tender and mash it. Cut the vegetables and green chillies, crush garlic cloves, chop coriander leaves and tear red chillies.
Add 1 liter of water to the mashed dhal and add chopped onions, tomatoes, brinjal, turmeric powder, garlic, green chillies and chilly powder. Boil this curry until vegetables are half-cooked. Add tamarind paste, sambar powder and salt and let it be cooked in medium flame for 10 minutes. Now, sambar is almost done. Remove it from the stove. Sprinkle chopped coriander leaves.
In a small pan, heat the oil in medium flame and fry mustard seeds. Once mustard is spluttered, add red chillies and hing powder and after they are fried add curry leaves. Add this to sambar and lid the sambar for 5 minutes. Now your ladies finger sambar is ready to devour. You can take this sambar with any Indian dish like idly, dosa, chappathi and cooked rice.