Vegetable Sambhar

Ingredients:
Toor dal/ Yellow lentils / arhar dal: 2 cups
Imali/ tamarind: 3tbs
Onion: 1 medium
Drum stick: 1-2
tomato: 1 medium
Curry leaves/ Kadi patta: 10 leaves
Mustard seeds: 1tbs
methi seeds/ fenugreek seeds: 10
Hing/ asafoetida
Sambhar masala (MTR is my choice) : 3-4tbs
Turmeric: 1 tbs
Red chili powder: 2tbs
Garlic: 3 cloves
Green chili: 3-4
Salt to taste
Water
Coriander to garnish

Following vegetable 1-2 cups chopped
Bottle gourd, Green peas, Carrot, Egg plant, potato, cauliflower

Preparation:
Soak toor dal for 30minutes and wash it twice with fresh water before cooking.

Soak tamarind in boiled water and keep the lid on for 30-60 minutes. Water should be just enough to soak tamarind. After 30-60 minutes remove the seeds and skin. Tamarind paste is ready.

I prefer to add turmeric and few drop of oil or ghee in dal while cooking. Dal cooks nice and soft. Some people also add salt.

Wash and cut drum sticks into 2-3 inch pieces. Cut potato into two.

Set the pressure cooker, keep dal container in the bottom, place a lid and keep drum sticks and potato to cook all together. This will save gas/ electricity. Cook dal without pressure for 30-35 minutes. For 1st ten minutes keep it on high flame and later turn it to medium flame.

In the mean time, prepare vegetables.
Peel onion and dice it up. Wash tomato and dice it. Peel garlic and cut it in thin flakes. Wash green chili and cut it into medium small pieces. Wash kadi patta. Keep this aside.

Remove skin from bottle gourd and dice it up. Remove skin from carrot and cut it in thin rings. Remove top from eggplant and dice it up. Cut cauliflower. Handful of green peas.

Boil all the vegetables (bottle gourd, carrot, eggplant, cauliflower, green peas) with salt added in microwave or on gas for 6-7 minutes. Save the water to add in dal if needed.

Once dal is cooked, remove potato and drum sticks aside. Dice potato and add all together with boiled vegetables and set aside.

Crush dal with hand blander to liquid.

Heat the pot, add 4 tbs of oil. Add mustard seeds, methi seeds once they start cracking add hing and curry leaves. Add garlic and green chili. Stir for a minute.

Once garlic starts to turn brown add onions. Stir for 3-4 minutes. Once onions starts to turn brown add tamarind paste. Bring it to boil for another minute.

Add dal. Add turmeric if not added while boiling the dal. Salt to taste. Red chili powder. Sambhar masala. Stir well. After another minute or two add all the vegetables. Add extra water if required. You may use the remaining water from vegetables. Add tomatos.

Turn the flame to medium. Keep the lid and cook for another 10-15 minutes. Sambhar should be slowly boiling. Stir occasionally. Taste sambhar, add extra sambhar masala or salt if required.

If you are not to health conscious, do the following tadaka in your sambhar. Sambhar will taste even better. Heat small round vessel, take 3 tbs of ghee, add mustar seeds, methi seeds,2 small red chili and hing when seeds splutter. Pour this on sambhar and mix well.

Garnish with coriander.

This sambhar gives good combination of fat, fiber and protein. Can be enjoyed with rice, idali etc to have complete meal.