Sambar

Every South Indian household has a sambar, and every single one of them is the right one. My father's family in Madurai made theirs with drumstick and pumpkin, fragrant with curry leaves and asafoetida, the dal cooked just past the point of holding its shape. My mother's family, who were Punjabi and did not historically eat sambar, would order it at restaurants when they felt like being cosmopolitan, and her father would gesture at the bowl and ask the table, "Why is there dal in the vegetable soup?"

I'm allowed to make jokes about both sides of this because they're my family. Both sides are right. Both sides also have strong opinions about how the other side does dinner, and the negotiations at our house growing up around what counted as "dinner" — North Indian dal-roti or South Indian rice-and-sambar — were a low-key recurring drama that I now look back on with some affection.

Sambar is South India's everything-stew. Tangy from tamarind. Gently sweet from the vegetables. Savory from the dal. Brought into focus by a hot tempering of mustard seeds and curry leaves poured on top in the final thirty seconds. The vegetable list is more of a suggestion than a rule. Drumstick, eggplant, pumpkin, okra, carrots, radish, green beans, whatever vegetables are looking sad in the crisper drawer on a given Tuesday. The constants are the dal-and-tamarind base and that final tempering, which is the thing that makes a pot of cooked dal and vegetables into actual sambar instead of just dal-with-vegetables.

You can build this any number of ways. This is the version I make at home — closest to what my father would have called "normal sambar." The version his mother would probably have considered a slight betrayal because I use a pressure cooker. I make peace with that betrayal regularly.

Cooking tips

Pressure-cooking the toor dal until it's completely soft and whisking it smooth makes for a more cohesive, restaurant-style base.

Soaking the tamarind in hot water and squeezing out the pulp gives the sambar its essential tang — paste works too, but fresh is better.

Sambar powder does most of the flavor work, so quality matters here. MTR and Aachi are reliable supermarket brands.

Pouring the final hot tempering over the finished sambar and covering for a minute traps the aromatics where they belong.

Ingredients

• 1 cup toor dal (split pigeon peas), rinsed
• 1/2 teaspoon turmeric
• 1 tablespoon neutral oil
• 4 cups water

For the vegetables:

• 1 small yellow onion, cut into thick wedges
• 1 medium tomato, chopped
• 1 small carrot, cut into chunks
• 1/2 cup chopped pumpkin or butternut squash
• 1/2 cup green beans, in 2-inch pieces
• 1 small drumstick or eggplant, in chunks (optional)

For the sambar broth:

• 1 lime-sized ball of tamarind (or 2 tablespoons tamarind paste)
• 1 cup hot water
• 2 tablespoons sambar powder
• 1 teaspoon jaggery or brown sugar
• Kosher salt

For the tempering:

• 2 tablespoons ghee or coconut oil
• 1 teaspoon mustard seeds
• 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
• 2 dried red chiles
• 15 fresh curry leaves
• 1/4 teaspoon asafoetida (hing)

Method

1. Cook the dal

Pressure-cook the toor dal with the turmeric, oil, and water until completely soft — 4 whistles on stovetop, or 10 minutes on an Instant Pot at high pressure. Whisk smooth.

2. Soak the tamarind

Soak the tamarind in 1 cup hot water for 10 minutes. Squeeze to extract the pulp; discard the fibers and seeds.

3. Cook the vegetables

In a large pot, simmer the vegetables in 2 cups water until tender, 8 to 10 minutes.

4. Combine

Add the cooked dal, tamarind water, sambar powder, jaggery, and 1 1/2 teaspoons salt. Add 1 to 2 cups more water for a soupy consistency. Simmer 10 minutes, partly covered. Taste — it should be tangy, savory, a little sweet. Adjust salt.

5. Temper

Heat the ghee in a small pan. Add the mustard seeds; when they pop, add the cumin, red chiles, curry leaves, and hing. Sizzle 20 seconds.

6. Finish

Pour the tempering over the sambar. Stir once. Cover 2 minutes to trap the aromatics. Serve over rice with a spoonful of ghee, or alongside idli or dosa.

A note: Sambar powders vary a lot brand to brand — start with one tablespoon if yours is on the strong side and work up from there. A good sambar should taste tangy first, then savory, then warm at the back of the throat. MTR and Aachi are the brands I keep stocked. My dad insists Sakthi is the only correct one. He may not be wrong.