Arachuvitta sambar, a south Indian traditional recipe with fresh ground spices, smells and tastes amazing when we use fresh ground spices like coriander seeds, chilli, asafoetida, cumin, fenugreek seeds.
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Amma makes best arachuvitta sambar as far as I know. Especially I love the one she makes for tiffin. Lunch sambar also will be great.
For me it took some time to get a hold with a perfect recipe. It has always been trial and errors. Still I loved the process of learning.
🌶 Fresh ground spice powder
For this particular sambar, the amount of each ingredient in this spice powder plays an important role. If it’s added in correct measurements, it turns out perfect.
Earlier I used to add more of coriander seeds by mistake and also roasted too dark. But later realized reducing the coriander seeds measurement and roasting it just right gives best results.
Even the dals when added more will be making it bland and thick in consistency. Which will dilute the flavor and taste.
💭 Top tip
One best tip I learnt from a tv cookery show is a gamechanger for me. It is to add a little coriander seeds raw without roasting, along with the powdering fresh spice.
While the roasted coriander seeds give a flavor, the raw ones also adds it’s more strong and freshest flavor when ground. Do try it if you have not.
Adding generous asafoetida gives the authentic sambar flavor. I at times use solid asafoetida too.
Using jaggery in a small trace gives perfect balance of taste, balancing everything.
🥕 Vegetables
Here are the vegetables that works best for this sambar.
- Potato
- Yellow/ white pumpkin
- Brinjal (add to tamarind water only after boiling starts)
Below are also the vegetables which needs to be precooked and then added along tamarind instead of boiling in tamarind water.
- Radish
- Ladies finger – Saute in sesame oil and add to tamarind water.
- Drumstick
- Broad beans
- Chow chow
A combination of vegetables can be used which will also taste best. Usually my favorite go to combo is potato, carrot, peas, capsicum, drumstick, yellow pumpkin and radish.
All these added only 3-4 piece per vegetable as it will give so much volume. Best method to finish off the leftovers.
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These are sambar made everyday basis with pre made sambar powder.
📸 Step by step method
Soak Tamarind & Cook dal
1. Soak tamarind in ½ cup hot water. After that you can extract juice. Or you can simply follow the below mentioned method.
2. Pressure cook toor dal with 1 & ¼ cups water for 4 whistles in medium flame.
3. I usually pressure cook dal with a small bowl kept in middle with the tamarind + little water along. This makes extracting juice easy. You can choose any method.
Fresh spice powder for arachuvitta sambar
1. To make fresh sambar powder, heat a teaspoon of ghee or oil in a kadai / pan.
2. In order, add fenugreek seeds, chana dal, urad dal, red chilli and 1 teaspoon of coriander seeds.
3. Take care not to burn any spices as it will spoil the whole sambar. Everything should be done in medium flame with constant stirring to ensure even roasting.
4. Once the dal turns golden, crisp and fragrant, transfer to a plate for cooling down.
5. After cooling down, place it in a mixer.
6. Add the remaining 1 teaspoon coriander seeds and grind it to a powder. In between, once wipe down the sides as there might be un ground ingredients stuck to the sides of the wall.
Keep this powder aside.
Preparation
1. Prepare the required things and keep ready. Extract tamarind juice, peel onion, chop tomato.
Make sambar
- Heat a kadai with ghee and add the tempering items in order.
2. After that, add onion, green chillies, curry leaves and saute till onion turns transparent. Lastly add tomatoes, saute for a minute.
3. Transfer to a pot in which you are making sambar.
4. Add the tamarind extract, turmeric powder to it and after it starts to boil nicely, add the vegetable and salt.
5. Let the vegetable get cooked. After that, add cooked dal and bring to boil. Adjust water consistency.
6. Lastly add the ground masala powder, jaggery and let it boil for 2 minutes or till the sambar gets thick.
7. Finally garnish with remaining curry leaves, coriander leaves and switch off the flame.
Recipe card
Arachuvitta sambar
Ingredients
- ⅓ cup Toor dal
- 1 teaspoon Tamarind gooseberry sized
- 12 Small onions
- 2 Green chilli
- 1 Tomato
- ¼ teaspoon Jaggery
- ½ teaspoon White pumpkin or Vegetable of your choice
- 4 Curry leaves
- 2 tablespoon Coriander leaves chopped
- Salt as you need
TO ROAST AND GRIND
- 1 tablespoon Chana dal – 1 tablespoon
- 1 teaspoon Urad dal – 1 teaspoon
- 5 Red chillies Spice level high
- 2 teaspoon Coriander seeds divided
- ¼ teaspoon Fenugreek seeds
TO TEMPER
- 2 teaspoon Ghee
- ½ teaspoon Mustard
- ¼ Asafoetida
- 1 Sprig Curry leaves
Instructions
Soak Tamarind & Cook dal
- Soak tamarind in ½ cup hot water.
- Pressure cook toor dal with 1 & ¼ cups water for 4 whistles in medium flame.
- I usually pressure cook dal with a small bowl kept in middle with the tamarind + little water along. This makes extracting juice easy. You can choose any method.
Fresh spice powder
- To make fresh sambar powder, heat a teaspoon of ghee or oil in a kadai / pan.
- In order, add fenugreek seeds, chana dal, urad dal, red chilli and 1 teaspoon of coriander seeds.
- Take care not to burn any spices as it will spoil the whole sambar. Everything should be done in medium flame with constant stirring to ensure even roasting.
- Once the dal turns golden, crisp and fragrant, transfer to a plate for cooling down.
- After cooling down, place it in a mixer. Add the remaining 1 teaspoon coriander seeds and grind it to a powder. In between, once wipe down the sides as there might be un ground ingredients stuck to the sides of the wall.
- Keep this powder aside.
- Heat a kadai with ghee and add the tempering items in order.
- After that, add onion, green chillies, curry leaves and saute till onion turns transparent. Lastly add tomatoes, saute for a minute.
- Transfer to a pot in which you are making sambar.
- Add the tamarind extract, turmeric powder to it and after it starts to boil nicely, add the vegetable and salt.
- Let the vegetable get cooked. After that, add cooked dal and bring to boil. Adjust water consistency.
- Lastly add the ground masala powder, jaggery and let it boil for 2 minutes or till the sambar gets thick.
- Finally garnish with remaining curry leaves, coriander leaves and switch off the flame.
Notes
- While adding fresh ground sambar powder, add it in a sprinkled way little by little by stirring as you add in other hand. If you add as such, it will form a lump. Some how I don’t like mixing with water and adding.
How delicious! Look at that Dosa like Topi, Udupi style!:))
Sambhar looks yum.
Thankyou Asha,for leaving your comments and visiting my blog
wow…your dosa looks awesome. You should visit my blog sometime and see how bad I made this. Sambar looks delicious.
After seeing your comment,I saw your Dosa Kribha, For that first time,you have did it good.Not so bad like you have mentioned..:))Thanx for visiting and leaving a comment!!
love the sambhar,and great pics too,liked ur pumpkin recipe too
Thankyou Bindhya!!Thanx for visiting!!
Sambar looks delicious dear…
love the smell of grounded powder:-)
And what about your dinner style?
Sambar looks delicious raks!
I have a question, can we grind the sambar powder in a large quantity and store it?
You have a nice collection of recipes, iam following you!
Pls do visit my website : http://www.appetitetreats.com.
Sambar looks yummy Raks..For arachuvitta sambar we used to add coconut..if we add coconut does it taste more good..will that be like Restaurant sambar..let me know..
I have tried making that version,but sadly never clicked for me. but i have tasted that version, its more flavorful for sure. But this too will be just like hotel sambar, trust me 🙂
potato or any veg that u added in sambhar is already boiled or we can add it raw as well??
Jyoti, you can either pre cook and add or directly add it to the sambar and get it cooked by boiling in the sambar itself…
Hi.. ur site is awesome.. u have a gallant spread of recipies thats very helpful for beginners like me..ur "recipies for occasions" like modakam are going to be of gr8 help for many of us who are going to try for the first time..
it turned out very well.. my husband loved it…
Love your site…good collections of recipes…Your sambar recipe is too delicious…taste is out of the world….I like the smell of sambar too…my husband loved it…your photo's are great…photography is too good….by the way what camera you use to take pic…
Hi Raks, awesome recipe!! On the homepage u have mentioned the ingredients for sambhar. Do I need to dry roast them before grinding them to a coarse powder or simply grind them? Also, does coriander seeds have to be added without roasting for the flavor? Please do let me know. Thanks. Pallavi.
Hi,
If you are ginding on bulk no need to roast them. Just sun dry till crisp lite and grind in mill. If you are doing that in mixer, then you can just roast them for a while, not that we should roast golden. Just roast to make it crisp for easy powdering…Hope this helps.
We love this site. Thanks to Raks
No words to tell how tasty it was! We just loved it. Thank you so much for the detailed recipe. I am a big fan of yours:-)
hi
i have made this 2-3 times…it s tasty…very flavourful.
I tried your sambar it came out well we all in our family loved it. My sambar will be very bad as compared before. Thanks for relieving me from this problem. Do you know to make molaga killi sambar it will be without veggies but tempered with dry chilles.
I tried this sambar…it was excellent!!!
I tried this sambar and it is tasting excellent. Some slight changes.
I added 2 tsps of dessicated coconut and 3-4 curry leaves (fried this along with the masala frying). Also I used 'byadagi' chillies which is slightly milder in heat and gives excellent color to the dish. Result, I have an attractive looking sambar. I am still awaiting my home critic's (my hubby of course) appraisal of the dish.
Thank you for painstaking effort in adding pics and diligent write-up.
Looking forward to trying more of your recipes.
Meena
Hello
Tried this sambar. It came out so well n was very tasty with great aroma.
Sunday Evening so i tried this recipe with cabbage poriyal. First time I am trying this sambar. It came out very well. But not the same way my wife makes it. I used butternut squash as a vegetable and that veggie took the whole taste of the sambar. Why would you put tamarind and then add veggie? isn't veggies cooked and then tamarind?
Some veggies takes a lot of time to cook, for such veggies, you can cook first and then add tamarind, some gets cooked so easily, those can be added together, no harm.
Actually i loved this sambar today with dosai. my son ate 3 dosa ; generally he eats 2 ..he he he..
Ok thanks.
I need to say this: As usual kalkureenga raks 🙂
Hi..would love to know why i m not getting the yellow colour of sambar as yours…:)tried many times with the same recipe…But the colour is so dark brown..
May be you are either roasting the ingredients too brown, or using the masala powder a lot.
Thank you much rak! I did exactly what you explained and it came out really well. my husband and in-laws loved it!
Hello raks , your recipes are awesome, the measurement are so perfect and would be so useful for featured. Thanks to you,
I have followed raks for 4 yrs now. Just a beginner in cooking. This recipe is not well laid out like others. Didn't know what to do with toor dal.
So sorry Dinesh, now updated properly.
Thank you for your divine recipe. My wife Selina cooks great Chinese food while dapper in Indian cooking. Wish I could be around while you cook.. Thanks.
Is there are differences btw this one and Tiffin sambar receive that u also have posted
Tiffin sambar is mildly spiced with less tamarind and mostly made with specific vegetables like potato, yellow pumpkin. Tiffin sambar if you mix with rice will be very very bland while this is not 🙂
I dont think, ulandu paruppu is added to the masala. If, added it gives a different taste.
Only for Pavakkai ulundu paruppu – more quantity is added inaddtion to pepper.
I am of opinion that for arachuvitta sambar no ulundu paruppu, in the masala, is required.
I have made both ways, trust me, adding a small proportion along with chana dal adds a good flavour, I aggree it goes good with pavakkai. But there, it is used a lot in proportion wise. this is just a bit 🙂
What a lovely sambar. I loved the simplicity of the recipe and the flavors that turned out. The kids loved it, Many thanks for sharing.
thanks a lot for your feedback, so happy to know 🙂
Hi Raks,
I followed this recipe and it came out great like hotel sambar. I have one question when adding sambar powder at last it forms lump and not dissolving while boil.. can you please suggest any way to avoid lumps
Dont add as such in large quantity, Sprinkle with one hand and stir as you do to avoid lumps. Or you can just give it a run in mixie with water and pour as you stir. Do this only while you are going to add to boiling sambar. Thank you for your feedback!