Intro:
Sambar, or vegetable stew, is a staple dish served with the staplest of staples (ana, or rice). Together, sambar and ana are pure classic. When we’re lucky, delicious dairy in the form of moosaru (yogurt or buttermilk curds) is also spooned onto the plate for mixing in. The dairy condiments are great for cutting the spice of hot sambar.
Sambar varies in color from light yellow to deep red, and runs the gamut of brown. The base vegetables are pretty much unchanging, with lentils or squash added in or taken out, but the flavor and level of spicy heat varies a lot. Occasionally fun little things like jackfruit seeds are thrown in to add flavor while cooking, and these may turn up on your plate! Here is a pretty basic recipe.
Ingredients:
Lots of water
2 cups lentils
Veggies: 20 green beans, 4 potatoes, 10 small tomatoes, 3 carrots, 2 small daikon or 4 red radishes
1 cup oil
1 red onion
Few dried chillies (approx. 3)
Salt
Seeds (not mustard) called “sas-vey”
Directions:
Boil a big pot of water and lentils
Throw in chopped vegetables, boil until everything is soft (approx. 45 minutes)
Fry oil, pop in seeds, sauté chopped onion and chillies, then pour in sambar
Salt and spice to taste
Serve:
Served sambar is more broth than vegetable. It is ladled into a pit that you dig into the center of your mound of rice, and then all mushed up together with the right hand. The wet rice is then transported plate-to-mouth, hopefully without too much dripping, between the thumb and three big fingers of the right hand. No matter how messy you get, don’t give up, grab a spoon, or lick your fingers – just keep shoveling! At the end of the meal, you can rinse off your hand with water.
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