Quick Sambhar cooked in a traditional way to retain the max nutrition value.
I have seen a lot of one pot sambar recipes, where they cook veggies and the toor dal together and also add the seasoning all in one go in a pressure cooker at once.
Issues with this process of one pot cooking:
1. Veggies which need less cooking time, but are over cooked, mashed and almost are not identifiable. This is because we cook it with Toor Dal which needs at least 3-4 whistles of cooking. Veggies just need 1 whistle of cooking or a simple boil for 10 minutes
2. The oils & spices used in the seasoning are also cooked at high temperatures for a long time. Research shows that oil & spices both when cooked for a long time loses most of the nutrition. So they are to be added at the end in the process of tempering just like our grandma did 🙂
This process of Sambhar is more nutritious and as quick too:
1. Start cooking the toor dal in a pressure cooker separately for 3 whistles
2. In parallel, cut and boil vegetables in salt & water on a medium flame for 10-15 minutes.
3. The moment the toor dal is cooked & cooled from the cooker, add it to the boiled veggies
4. Add turmeric and sambar/chilli powder
5. Add a spoon of jaggery (it really gives a special yummy flavour)
6. Add the tempering with oil, mustard, jeera, methi, curry leaves at the end.
7. Adding the tempered oil and spices at the end gives the sambhar a delicious flavour 🙂
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