Till now my attempt to make Sambar has been a vain. It never comes in the right texture or taste. Sometimes it will be watery sometimes sour sometimes thick the list goes on! So today i tried Srivalli’s sambar recipe and it came out perfect. It is so easy to follow and with very less ingredients.You can find more yummy sambar reicpes here in her blog.

here is the recipe. I followed the recipe blindly and made some minor changes

Drumstick Sambar

Preparation Time : 15 mins
Cooking Time : 15 mins

Ingredients Needed

Toor Dal – 1 cup
Drumstick / Munnakaya / Murungakai – 1 or 2 nos (i added a medium sized potato too)
Sambar Onions – 100 gms
Sambar Powder – 1 tsp (i used Eastern so i added more than a tsp till the sambar taste came.)
Tomatoes – 2 medium
Tamarind pulp – small lime size (i used 1 tbsp tamarind pulp)
Coriander Leaves – few chopped
Oil – 1 tbsp (i used coconut oil)
Salt to Taste
Turmeric a pinch

For Seasoning

Mustard Seeds + Urud Dal + Fenugreek – 1/2 tsp
Curry Leaves – few
Garlic – 4 pods

Method to Prepare:

Clean Toor Dal and pressure cook it with 2 drops of Oil and turmeric. This makes it cook fast. Keep it for 2 whistle.

Soak tamarind and extract pulp from it.

Chop onions, tomatoes, keep aside. Chop drumstick, the outer skin is also very healthy, so should not be peeled. Chop them into finger length pieces

Boil a cup of water and once it starts boiling, drop in drumstick and potato and cook till its tender. This should not be pressure cooked as it gets over cooked.

To the cooked Dal, add the chopped tomatoes and Sambar powder, salt. Cook for another whistle. Finally add the tamarind pulp along with required water. Bring to boil. simmer it while you temper with seasonings.

Heat oil in a pan, add the seasoning ingredients. Then add chopped onions, Once they are golden in colour, add to the simmering dal along with cooked drumstick pieces.

Cook on high flame for 5 mins, then simmer for 10 mins till its cooked well. Garnish with coriander leaves.

Serve with rice, dosa,idle

After Ramadan its back to normal life. We all miss the fasting, waking up for sehri, the iftaari… Eid was on Sunday in Singapore ans the next 2 days we had lot of gettogethers and lots of friends visiting us..  So only today everything turned to normal. Another thing is we started with Extra Virgin Olive oil for cooking. Im still looking out for whether its compatible with Indian cooking.. so far no taste difference and i’m loving it!

i wanted to cook something very simple today so this came up in my mind..  a very simple recipe which will go well with roti and rice.

3-4 large potatoes peeled and cut and boiled. But should not be soft and mushy.

1 tsp jeera / cmin seeds

1 medium size onion chopped finely

1/2 tsp ginger garlic paste

1 tsp red chili pwder

1/2 tsp turmeric pwdr

1/2 coriander pwdr

1/2 tsp roasted cumin pwdr

salt to taste

olive oil fr frying

Heat oil in a heavy bottom vessel. Add jeera and onions together. When the onions are brown add the ginger garlic paste. Keep on stirring and add red chilli pwdr and turmeric pwdr and mix well. After this add potatoes, coriander, cumin pwders and salt and mix well.

Close and cook for another few mts.

Sandwiches is my all time favorite food! I usually turn all left overs into sandwiches!!! some turn out food some flop!! LOL!!

i had some left over aloo subzi yersterday and i thought that would make an interesting lunch for my hubby!!! is a big fan of leftover sandwiches but i made the green chutney more spicy this time and he liked it!

what you’ll need is

6 slices of bread
pototo subzi
green chutney
butter for applying on bread (optional)

Green Pulav.. i usually make this when i have a lot of mint leaves!!! So instead of wasting them i just make a pulav of it and my kiddos love any type of pulav!!

you’ll need

1. 1 bunch of fresh coriander leaves and mint leaves finely chopped
2. 3-4 green chillies
3. 1 tbsp ginger and garlic paste
4. 1 tsp garam masala
5. salt to taste
6. 2 onions finely chopped
7. 4 tspns oil
8. 2 cups boiled basmati rice
9. water
10. a handful of green peas
11. boiled potatoes – fried in oil

how to make:

• Grind coriander leaves, mint leaves and green chilies and make a thick paste.
• Fry onions till golden brown, add garam masala and ginger and garlic paste.
• Fry till oil seperates then add the grinded paste with a little water.
• Let it cook till you get a nice aroma and it should thicken.
• Add salt to taste, peas and the fried potatoes.
• Add the rice to it and mix well.
• Serve hot with any veg or non-veg dish.