By Sushmita Sengupta
Sambar is a south Indian, vegetarian lentil curry that also features many local veggies. It is often served with idli, vadas and dosas. Here are some tips to make it right.
Always use fresh, unpolished tuvar dal for maximum flavour and nutrition. Pressure cook the dal with salt.
Using fresh tamarind as opposed to aged tamarind is also a good idea as the latter is will make the sambhar very sour.
When you are tempering the spices and herbs, make sure you do that on low heat, let you burn the masalas.
Only when the vegetables are cooked halfway, add the tamarind water, followed by salt, sambhar powder, chilli powder, hing and haldi
Bear in mind the consistency, the ideal ratio of water that should be added should not exceed 3x the dal.