Ulli sambar (shallot sambar)

What's up peeps? Hows everyone doing? Long time right? Well i have just been unusually busy and I still am, but thought id just drop in and say hola to all my fellow bloggers.

I have a friend from Chennai days, staying with me for 10 days and we have just been travelling all over...did the usual London touristy thing last week, was at Dover on Sunday, heading to Windsor tomorrow and to Oxford on Wednesday and squeezing loads of gossip and shopping in between. Ro is going mad with all the giggling and the loud laughs that wake him up in the middle of the night, but I'm totally loving it. Last week Reena of Coconut Raita announced I'd won tickets to the BBC Good Food Show in Birmingham and so me and Swar of Swar's Kitchen headed for a day filled with food and fun. I shall do a post on that later, when I have the time, but for now, here's the recipe for a shallot sambar which I followed from Jugalbandi's blog. I saw the tiny shallots peeled and cleaned at the Thai store and enthusiastically picked it up to make some fancy mallu dish, but Ro beat me to it and decided he wanted Ulli sambar instead. My idli's always turned out hard and we had almost given up on making them when my mom in law suggested I add about 1/2 tsp soda powder to one packet (yes I buy the ready made dosa batter) and there, I had the most softest, fluffiest idli's ever. Thanks Mamma. That was an awesome trick.

I followed the recipe to the dot, except that I used 1 1/2 tsp of coriander powder instead of coriander seeds and 1/4 tsp tamarind paste and diluted it in 1/4 cup warm water. I also used 1/4 tsp fenugreek powder, instead of the seeds.

It was pretty different from the usual sambar I've had and i am sure I'll make it again.

Sending this to Priya's Healing Foods Event, where this months choice is Onion.