Sambar Saatham / Bisibela Baath

One of the simplest and quickest recipes for lunch menu is Sambar Rice. Which is a perfect diet meal all in one. It has rice rich in carbohydrate, toor dal not only rich in protein but also contains 23 essential amino acids.. along with the good number of vegetables in it adds nutritional value to it.. It can be served with boondhi raitha too, which completes the meal with a milk product. It is generally served with appalam(paappad) and pickle.

Ingredients:

Rice - 1 cup

Toor dal - 1 cup (little less than a cup)

Vegetables - almost all sambar vegetables can be added. Here I used a capsicum, a piece of raddish, a piece of cauliflower floret, 2 egg plants, 2 potatoes, some peas

Tomato - 1 medium size

Onion - 1 no

Curry leaves - 1 stem

Mustard Seeds - 1 tsp

Hinge - 1/2 tsp

Dry Red Chillies - 2 nos

Oil - 2 tsp

Tamarind- 1 lemon size (Soak and extract the juice)

Ginger / Garlic - a bit/ 1 pod (Optional)

Ghee- 1 tsp (Optional)

Cashewnut - few (Optional)

Salt -to taste

To Grind :

Corriander Seeds - 1 tbsp

Chenna dal - 1 tbsp

Urad dal - 1/2 tbsp

Dry Red Chillies - 4 nos. or up to your taste.

Coconut - a normal size sliced or 1/2 cup shredded.

Cumin Seeds -1/4 tbsp 

Cloves -  4 nos

Cinnamon Stick -2 nos

Fennel Seeds - 1 tsp

Cardomom - 2 nos(Optional)

Procedure:

• Soak Toor dal first before we start anything on stove.
• In a Cooker or a Vessel we use to cook the rice, Sputter some mustard seeds in oil, add curry leaves, hinge and red chillies.

• Then add Chopped Onion, If in case you would like to add ginger and garlic, add them now.
• While the onion is being saute, Cut potato and add them in. Follow the next hardest veggie like carrot, beans,  egg plant, cauliflower, capsicum and green peas... Let it be in for 2 minutes.

• Mean while dry roast the ingredients above said to grind items along with the coconut. Grind them coarsely.

• I roasted the coconut separately, coz I used the frozen kind. While grinding the masala, grind them with the coconut too..

• Add soaked and washed toor dhal, and rice to the vegetables.
• Add the ground masala into it.

• Add required water as usual you keep to cook rice. I used 1:3 for rice and water. Here I used 6 cups of water since I added 1 cup of rice and 1 cup of toor dal. Include measuring tamarind juice too.
• Add sliced tomatoes and tamarind extract.

• Add Ghee and Cashew, if you would like to taste special.

• Pressure cook and mix well and serve hot with your favorite sides like boondhi raitha, pickle, pappadam...