Mullangi Sambar | Radish Sambar

            From my childhood days I could never tolerate the smell of Radish and so I had never tried cooking it myself all these yrs, though my mom uses it often in various dishes . Inspired by few blogger friends and a Singaporean friend, I tried Radish salad | Mullangi Kosambari and Mullangi chutney, the outcome was good and there was no smell of radish in the final dish. I wanted to try the mooli sambar or Mullangi sambar | Radish Sambar, which my mom often makes. This recipe needs a sweet potato or fresh tender drumstick to enhance the taste, especially if you are someone like me who do not favor its smell.

pictures courtesy of my 8 yr old son

Ingredients

½ cup of toor dal / kandi pappu

1 to 2 tbsps masoor dal (optional)

Sweet potato and radish both of equal sizes (if you wish to use drumstick, you can use 1 to 2 small sticks)

Jumbo pinch turmeric

1 green chili

10 to 12 shallots or 2 onions halved

1 tomato

Few tbsps. tamarind pulp (adjust the quantity to suit your taste)(soak a lemon sized tamarind ball in hot water , squeeze and extract juice)

1 to 1 ½  tsps. sambar powder ( I used  Everest madras sambar powder)

coriander leaves few sprigs (I did not have , so I did not use)

tempering

1 sprig curry leaves

pinch  of each : methi,  mustard and jeera

1 garlic (optional)

pinch turmeric

jumbo pinch of Hing

1 red chili broken

ghee or oil for tempering as needed

Method

1.   Pressure cook dal with 1 cup of water for 3 whistles or till soft

2.   Once cool grind it to a smooth paste or use a filter like me at step 5 to remove the coarse dal.

3.   Pour 3 to 4 glasses of water in a utensil, add chopped radish, sweet potato, tomato, onions, green chili, turmeric, salt. boil till the veggies are ¾ th cooked

4.   Add sambar powder and cook till the veggies are done fully and are soft

5.   Add tamarind paste and smooth grinded dal or filter the dal thru a colander and stir with a ladle to let the smooth dal pass thru the filter and discard the coarse dal. There will be hardly a tbsp of dal left in the colander if your dal is soft cooked.This is very important else the sambar tastes different more like a pappu  pulusu. Bring it to a boil, add coriander leaves if using

6.   Heat ghee or oil in a separate small pan for tempering, add cumin. methi and mustard, when they begin to splutter add curry leaves, garlic and red chili, sauté for few seconds, add hing  and turmeric

7.   Pour this over the boiling sambar. off the heat

* Difference in the color is due to the lighting in the first 2 pics.