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    Home » Recipes » Sambar Recipes

    Arachuvitta sambar recipe, fresh ground masala

    October 2, 2007 by Raks Anand 44 Comments / Jump to Recipe

    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.

    poosanikkai arachuvitta sambar
    Jump to:
    • 🌶 Fresh ground spice powder
    • 💭 Top tip
    • 🥕 Vegetables
    • You may also like
    • 📸 Step by step method
    • Recipe card

    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.

    You may also like

    These are sambar made everyday basis with pre made sambar powder.

    • Vendakkai sambar
    • Chow chow sambar
    • Avarakkai sambar

    📸 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.

    First step

    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.

    before grinding spices

    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.

    fresh spice powder

    Keep this powder aside.

    Preparation

    1. Prepare the required things and keep ready. Extract tamarind juice, peel onion, chop tomato.

    onion tomato tamarind

    Make sambar

    1. 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.

    saute

    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.

    add spice powder

    7. Finally garnish with remaining curry leaves, coriander leaves and switch off the flame.

    arachuvitta sambar

    Recipe card

    poosanikkai arachuvitta sambar
    Print Pin
    4.63 from 8 votes

    Arachuvitta sambar

    South Indian sambar recipe with fresh ground spices to make it smell divinely. South Indian sambar smells and tastes amazing when used fresh ground spices
    Course Side Dish
    Cuisine Indian
    Prep Time 15 minutes
    Cook Time 20 minutes
    Soaking tie 15 minutes
    Total Time 35 minutes
    Servings 4
    Cup measurements

    Ingredients

    • â…“ 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 tbsp
    • 1 teaspoon Urad dal - 1 tsp
    • 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
    Prevent your screen from going dark

    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. 
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    Other Lunch sambar recipes

    • Chow chow sambar recipe, Chayote sambar
    • Carrot sambar recipe, sambar with garlic
    • Vengaya sambar recipe, chinna vengaya sambar
    • Capsicum sambar recipe, Kudamilagai sambar

    Reader Interactions

    Comments

    1. Asha

      October 02, 2007 at 11:45 am

      How delicious! Look at that Dosa like Topi, Udupi style!:))
      Sambhar looks yum.

      Reply
    2. RAKS KITCHEN

      October 02, 2007 at 12:08 pm

      Thankyou Asha,for leaving your comments and visiting my blog

      Reply
    3. Kribha

      October 02, 2007 at 9:21 pm

      wow...your dosa looks awesome. You should visit my blog sometime and see how bad I made this. Sambar looks delicious.

      Reply
    4. RAKS KITCHEN

      October 02, 2007 at 11:28 pm

      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!!

      Reply
    5. bindiya

      October 04, 2007 at 7:59 am

      love the sambhar,and great pics too,liked ur pumpkin recipe too

      Reply
    6. RAKS KITCHEN

      October 04, 2007 at 3:26 pm

      Thankyou Bindhya!!Thanx for visiting!!

      Reply
    7. Aruna Manikandan

      May 09, 2010 at 12:17 pm

      Sambar looks delicious dear...
      love the smell of grounded powder:-)

      Reply
    8. Neeta

      February 12, 2011 at 9:52 am

      And what about your dinner style?

      Reply
    9. Sathya Sankar

      May 04, 2011 at 10:04 am

      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.

      Reply
    10. UmaHari

      July 15, 2011 at 11:05 am

      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..

      Reply
    11. RAKS KITCHEN

      July 15, 2011 at 11:08 am

      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 🙂

      Reply
    12. Jyoti Agrawal

      August 23, 2011 at 5:19 am

      potato or any veg that u added in sambhar is already boiled or we can add it raw as well??

      Reply
    13. RAKS KITCHEN

      August 23, 2011 at 5:23 am

      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...

      Reply
    14. Madhu

      August 31, 2011 at 6:15 am

      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..

      Reply
    15. subha tamilnadu recipe

      October 30, 2011 at 1:03 am

      it turned out very well.. my husband loved it...

      Reply
    16. Gayram

      March 21, 2012 at 5:54 am

      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...

      Reply
    17. Pallavi Ian

      July 03, 2012 at 8:56 am

      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.

      Reply
    18. RAKS KITCHEN

      July 03, 2012 at 8:57 am

      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.

      Reply
    19. Maady

      September 28, 2012 at 7:56 pm

      We love this site. Thanks to Raks

      Reply
    20. Lakshmi Canteen @ Koppa

      October 02, 2012 at 1:45 am

      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:-)

      Reply
    21. RENU

      November 16, 2012 at 5:15 am

      hi
      i have made this 2-3 times...it s tasty...very flavourful.

      Reply
    22. Sangee

      November 26, 2012 at 12:13 am

      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.

      Reply
    23. diana

      January 22, 2013 at 8:39 am

      I tried this sambar...it was excellent!!!

      Reply
    24. Unknown

      February 01, 2013 at 8:35 pm

      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

      Reply
    25. Shalini

      May 21, 2013 at 7:53 am

      Hello
      Tried this sambar. It came out so well n was very tasty with great aroma.

      Reply
    26. sanjan

      August 20, 2013 at 1:12 am

      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?

      Reply
    27. Raks anand

      August 20, 2013 at 1:16 am

      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.

      Reply
    28. sanjan

      August 20, 2013 at 1:54 pm

      Actually i loved this sambar today with dosai. my son ate 3 dosa ; generally he eats 2 ..he he he..

      Reply
    29. sanjan

      August 20, 2013 at 1:54 pm

      Ok thanks.
      I need to say this: As usual kalkureenga raks 🙂

      Reply
    30. Banusree Praveen

      December 16, 2014 at 8:15 am

      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..

      Reply
    31. Raks anand

      December 16, 2014 at 8:19 am

      May be you are either roasting the ingredients too brown, or using the masala powder a lot.

      Reply
    32. Gm Shylaja

      May 25, 2015 at 2:16 am

      Thank you much rak! I did exactly what you explained and it came out really well. my husband and in-laws loved it!

      Reply
    33. Vasantha Rajalakshmi

      December 02, 2015 at 12:19 am

      Hello raks , your recipes are awesome, the measurement are so perfect and would be so useful for featured. Thanks to you,

      Reply
    34. Dinesh talks

      November 22, 2016 at 2:55 pm

      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.

      Reply
    35. Raks anand

      November 22, 2016 at 3:03 pm

      So sorry Dinesh, now updated properly.

      Reply
    36. shankar~selina

      October 19, 2017 at 10:17 am

      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.

      Reply
    37. Unknown

      October 10, 2018 at 3:24 pm

      Is there are differences btw this one and Tiffin sambar receive that u also have posted

      Reply
    38. Raks Kitchen

      October 10, 2018 at 3:26 pm

      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 🙂

      Reply
    39. N.A.Natarajan

      April 07, 2020 at 4:29 pm

      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.

      Reply
      • Raks Anand

        April 07, 2020 at 6:33 pm

        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 🙂

        Reply
    40. Shiva

      April 29, 2020 at 12:01 pm

      5 stars
      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.

      Reply
      • Raks Anand

        April 29, 2020 at 2:37 pm

        thanks a lot for your feedback, so happy to know 🙂

        Reply
    41. Ashokraj

      November 13, 2020 at 2:46 am

      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

      Reply
      • Raks Anand

        November 13, 2020 at 3:15 pm

        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!

        Reply

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    Hi, I'm Rajeswari Vijayanand! I am the person behind Rakskitchen, sharing recipes with pictures & videos.

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