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Shallot sambar

Time1 hour
YieldsMakes 2 cups
Shallot sambar
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The dosa is a hugely versatile food. In India, it can be a light snack or a meal in itself. It can be made light and lacy or thick and substantial. It can take a simple five minutes to prepare or a marathon 24 hours. Its batter can be refrigerated for a week and still not lose its taste. And it can be made in a hundred different ways, to suit a hundred different tastes.

All of this I know from personal experience. When I was growing up in India, we used to have the most marvelous summer vacations at my grandparents’ rambling house. It seemed to me that at any given time there were a hundred people there--uncles, aunts, cousins, second cousins, widowed great aunts, neighbors and a stray friend or two.

One of the simplest ways of feeding the tribe was to prepare gallons of dosa batter, with gallons of sambar and coconut chutney to go with it. The dosa batter and chutney would be ground in an oversized version of a stone mortar and pestle. Even simpler was making a dosa that could be eaten with just homemade hot mango or bamboo shoot pickles, or with date syrup or honey.

The women of the house would take turns standing over the hot griddles to keep the dosas coming. The children, once they were done eating, were recruited to yo-yo between the dining table and the kitchen with the fresh batches. That we needed urgent refueling for this arduous task was taken as a given, and a handful of banana chips or a cream of wheat ladoo did absolute wonders to keep up our strength.

The secret of the perfect dosa lies primarily in the making of the batter. The sourdough dosa, which forms the basis for the masala dosa and is probably the most labor-intensive of dosas, is made with rice and the legume urad dal (a kind of black lentil). It has to be blended to the perfect consistency and fermented correctly in order to get it right. The warm weather in south India speeds up the fermentation process, but in more temperate climes, it can take up to 12 hours.

It’s a good idea to prepare a small amount of batter to begin with. Make half a batch to start. But even with a perfect batter, the crispy mile-long masala dosa served in restaurants does take a bit of practice--and griddle space--to achieve.

But don’t worry. You don’t need to make it a mile long. It need not be a perfect circle, and it’s allowed to be more than a millimeter thick--even if you’re not cooking for hundreds of hungry relatives.

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1

Wash the dal thoroughly until the water runs clear. In one saucepan combine the dal, 1 1/2 cups water, the turmeric and 1 teaspoon of oil and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer, covered, until the dal is soft, about 30 minutes. Mash with a wire whisk until softened.

2

In another saucepan, dissolve the tamarind paste in the remaining 3/4 cup water over low heat for several minutes. Add the shallots and simmer until the shallots are tender, about 15 minutes. Mix into the cooked dal. Add the sambar powder and salt and simmer over low heat just until heated through.

3

Heat the remaining 1 tablespoon of oil in a small, shallow saucepan over high heat until it almost smokes. Add the mustard seeds. When these start spluttering, add the curry leaves and immediately empty the mixture into the simmering sambar. Turn off the heat and garnish with the cilantro. Serve hot.

This is a spicy, wholesome stew made with dal and vegetables. In this version, I use shallots, which lend a slightly sweet taste to the sambar. You could also use vegetables such as potatoes, onions, green beans, eggplants, radish, carrots and tomatoes. The sambar is a mainstay of the South Indian daily diet and is eaten with rice, dosas or idlis (dumplings). You will need to make a special mix of spices--sambar powder--for this. The powder is also commercially produced and available in Indian grocery stores.