I always wonder the taste of hotel Sambar, it is surely a bit different from our usual sambar which we prepare in home. I have tried many permutations and combinations and finally arrived at the below recipe for the Sambar which I believe being followed in the Chennai hotels.
| Servings | 4 |
| Preparation Time | 5 mins |
| Cooking Time | 30mins |
![Hotel Sambar]( "Hotel Sambar") |
| Hotel Sambar |
Ingredients for making Sambar:
| Tamarind | 1 Lemon Size |
| Corainder Leaves | 1 teaspoon finely chopped |
| Thur Dal | 1/2 Cup |
| Salt | to taste |
| Pumpkin | 1 cup(Finely Chopped) |
| Grated Jaggery | 2 teaspoon(Finely Chopped) |
Ingredients for Grinding (for Sambar):
| Channa dal(Gram dal) | 1 tablespoon |
| Coriander Seeds | 1 tablespoon |
| Cumin seeds | 1/2 teaspoon |
| Red chilli | 8 |
| Fenugeek seeds | 1/4 teaspoon |
Ingredients for Seasoning (for Sambar):
| Mustard Seeds | 1 teaspoon |
| Curry Leaves | Few |
| Hing | 1/2 teaspoon |
| Oil | 1 teaspoon |
![Hotel Sambar]( "Hotel Sambar") |
| Hotel Sambar |
Method
- Soak the tamarind in water for 10 minutes and extract the tamarind juice and keep it aside
- Cook the thurdal and finely chopped pumpkin in a pressure cooker. Pumpkin is a key ingredient here which will give a light sweet taste to sambar and also the thickness. Heat a pan, add the grinding ingredients and dry fry them till the dals turn golden brown. Take all the fried ingredients in a mixer.
- Grind all the ingredients to a fine powder and take this in a bowl. This is the Sambar Powder that we are going to add with the Sambar after few steps. Heat a pan, add oil and when the oil is hot, add mustard seeds. When the mustard seeds starts to sputter, add chopped curry leaves and hing.
- Add the tamarind extract and salt and allow the mixture to boil till the raw smell of the tamarind goes off. Now add little water with the Sambar Powder (which we prepared few steps before) and mix well. We can also add water while grinding and make it a paste. The main reason for adding water is that, when the sambar powder is added to tamarind extract it should not form lumps. So, if we make the sambar powder as a paste then it mixes well with the tamarind extract. When the raw smell of the tamarind extract goes off, add the sambar powder paste and immediately stir with a ladle to mix well
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- Now take the cooked dal and pumpkin and smash it nicely with the help of back of a ladle. This should be like a paste. It is very important to make sure that the dal is cooked properly and it should get smashed when we press it with the ladle. Add the smashed dal and pumpkin to the sambar and stir well. Keep the flame in medium low and wait for the sambar to start boiling. When the sambar starts to boil, add grated jaggery and remove from flame and garnish with coriander leaves
- Now the mouth-watering Hotel Sambar is ready with vada, idli, dosa or plain white rice with little ghee.
![Hotel Sambar]( "Hotel Sambar") |
| Hotel Sambar |
