Step 1) Clean, wash and soak dal in water for 15 minutes. At the same time, the dal is soaked; clean and chop the vegetables (bottle gourd, carrot, pumpkin, drumstick) for the sambar. Step 2) Transfer dal to a pressure cooker with chopped vegetables, tomato, turmeric powder, red chilli powder, garlic, salt and water. Stir to mix.
Now add sambar powder, turmeric powder, mix well and switch off the flame. In the same pressure cooker, mash the dal slightly, add the chopped vegetables and 1 ½ cups of water and bring it to a boil. You can adjust the quantity of water as per your need. This yields a thick sambar. If you need a slightly runny one add half a cup of extra water.
Vegetable Sambar is a fridge forage kind of stew where you can put lentils and all the vegetables in the fridge. …….comforting! Dal: Usually, split pigeon pea (toor or arhar dal) is used for making sambar. You can also make it with split red lentils (masoor dal). Vegetables: Onion and tomato are the two essentials for making vegetable sambar.
Do try to add drumsticks if you can as in most hotel style sambar, drumsticks are added and they give a nice taste & flavor in the sambar. You can also add carrots, green beans, flat beans, ladyfingers (okra), brinjals, potatoes, pumpkin, ash gourd, onions etc. 4. Both tuvar dal and masoor dal are added in the sambar served in hotels.