Weeknight Sambar with Toor Dal and Mustard-Seed Tempering

By Sprig Originals ✓ · cooked up in Sprig

South India's everyday lentil-and-vegetable stew, built for a US home kitchen: soft toor dal simmered with tamarind, tomato and whatever vegetables you have, seasoned with store-bought sambar powder, then finished with a sizzling mustard-seed tarka poured over the top. Tangy, savoury, faintly sweet, and ready in about an hour with almost no chopping skill required.

Ingredients

• 1 cup toor dal (split pigeon peas), rinsed
• 3 1/2 cups water, plus more as needed
• 1/4 teaspoon ground turmeric
• 1 teaspoon neutral oil or ghee

• 1 tablespoon neutral oil
• 1 small yellow onion or 6 shallots, sliced
• 1 medium tomato, chopped
• 3 cups mixed vegetables in 1-inch pieces (carrot, green beans, daikon or radish, drumsticks, eggplant, chayote, bell pepper)
• 1 green chile, slit lengthwise
• 2 teaspoons tamarind concentrate (thick paste), or 3 tablespoons tamarind puree
• 2 1/2 tablespoons sambar powder, store-bought
• 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt, plus more to taste
• 1/2 teaspoon jaggery or light brown sugar
• 1 1/2 cups water or vegetable broth

• 2 tablespoons ghee or coconut oil
• 1 teaspoon black mustard seeds
• 1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
• 1 teaspoon urad dal (split skinned black gram), optional
• 2 dried red chiles, broken in half
• 12 fresh curry leaves
• 1 pinch asafoetida (hing), optional

• 1/3 cup cilantro leaves, chopped
• 1 lime, cut into wedges

Instructions

1. Rinse 1 cup toor dal in several changes of water until the water runs mostly clear, about 1 minute. Drain.
2. Pressure cooker method: combine the dal, 3 1/2 cups water, turmeric and 1 teaspoon oil in an electric pressure cooker. Cook on high pressure 12 minutes, then let the pressure release naturally for 10 minutes. Stovetop method: bring the same mixture to a boil in a covered pot, skim any foam, then simmer over low heat 45–55 minutes, stirring occasionally and adding hot water as needed, until the dal collapses.
3. Whisk the cooked dal vigorously with a spoon or whisk until it looks like a loose, creamy soup with no whole lentils. Set aside.
4. While the dal cooks, heat 1 tablespoon oil in a large pot or Dutch oven over medium-high. Add the onion and cook 4–5 minutes until softened and lightly browned at the edges. Add the tomato and green chile and cook 3 minutes, mashing the tomato until it breaks down.
5. Add the mixed vegetables, 1 1/2 cups water or broth and 1 teaspoon of the salt. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer, cover partially, and cook 8–12 minutes until the hardest vegetable is just tender when pierced (carrots and daikon take longest; add quick-cooking eggplant or bell pepper in the last 5 minutes).
6. Stir the tamarind concentrate into the vegetables along with the sambar powder and the jaggery. Simmer uncovered 5 minutes — this cooks off the raw edge of both the tamarind and the spice blend, which is the difference between flat sambar and good sambar.
7. Pour in the whisked dal and stir well. Add water 1/4 cup at a time until the sambar is the consistency of a thin gravy that just coats a spoon. Bring to a gentle simmer and cook 5–8 minutes, stirring often so the dal doesn't catch on the bottom. Taste and add the remaining 1/2 teaspoon salt, plus more tamarind for tang or a pinch more jaggery for balance. Keep it at a bare simmer.
8. Make the tempering: heat the ghee or coconut oil in a small skillet or tarka pan over medium-high until it shimmers. Add the mustard seeds and wait until they pop and crackle, 20–40 seconds. Immediately add the cumin seeds and urad dal and swirl 15–20 seconds until the urad dal turns light gold.
9. Add the dried chiles and curry leaves — stand back, they will spatter — swirl 10 seconds until the leaves are crisp and fragrant, then kill the heat and add the asafoetida. The whole tempering takes under a minute; if the mustard seeds smell acrid, start over.
10. Pour the entire sizzling tempering, oil and all, over the pot of sambar and stir it in once. Cover for 5 minutes off the heat to let it bloom.
11. Stir in the cilantro and serve hot in bowls over steamed rice, or alongside idli, dosa or crisp papadum, with lime wedges at the table.

Chef's tips

Nutrition (per serving, estimated)

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