Homemade sambar powder always have a nice aroma and fresh flavor infused in it, when compared to store bought ones. I never use store bought sambhar powder for preparing sambar in my home, since am not compromised with the taste. I always and always love homemade ones. The ingredients included in sambar powder may vary from home to home and everyone of them has different taste. My mom use to make sambar powder in her own way and we all love the Sambhar made out of it. Am also following the same recipe of my mom and always prepare in large quantity and store it in air tight containers.
This sambhar powder, if prepared and stored as mentioned here, shelf life will be about 6 months with its fresh aroma.
Ingredients:
| Coriander Seeds | 300 gms |
| Bengal Gram / Channa Dal | 1/4 kg |
| Dry Red Chilly | 1/4 kg |
| Pepper | 100 gms |
| Cumin Seeds | 50 gms |
| Fenugreek Seeds | 50 gms |
| Asafoetida | 50 gms |
Cooking Instructions:
Heat a fry pan and add coriander seeds to it and keep frying it until the coriander slightly changes in color and becomes crunchy. While frying, keep stirring, otherwise the coriander seeds in bottom will get burnt. After that, keep it aside in a large plate. Next add peppercorns in the pan and fry it for 4 to 5 minutes in medium flame and keep it aside in the large plate along with coriander.
Then add fenugreek seeds in the pan and fry it in medium flame until it changes golden brown in color and keep it aside in the plate. Next add cumin seeds in the pan and fry it until the cumin changes in color and the cumin starts to crackle very fast. keep it aside with the other items.
Now add Bengal gram and fry it in medium flame until it changes golden brown in color and keep it aside (Fry the Bengal gram well, otherwise, small insects may spoil the shelf life of the powder). Split red chilly in three batches, ( do not remove the stem, since it causes smoke while frying and lead to heavy cough) since the whole amount of chilly will crowd the pan and may not fry properly. Now fry red chilly in batches, until you see black spots here and there in red chilly and the chilly bulges slightly.
Now, dry all this mixture in the plate in fiery hot sunshade for about 6 hours (a day). By the end of the day, all the ingredients would have become crunchy. If the weather is not so hot, keep the items in sunshade for one more day.
Two things we have to do now before grinding: one is, remove the stems of the chilly and discard it. Second thing is, fry asafoetida (just before grinding and no need to dry asafoetida in sunshade) in simmer flame for about 3 minutes. Mix all the ingredients, including asafetida, well with your hands. Grind all the ingredients together in two or three batches. Grind it little COARSE and not too fine! Let it cool down for about 5 to minutes and then store it in jars.
Mix well all the coarsely powdered mixture well twice or thrice. Ensure that all the items has mixed uniformly. If possible, if you have large size pet jars, put this powder into it and toss it well, so that all the powders will mix uniformly.
That's it!, our Sambar Powder is ready to store and use! Store it in air tight containers and it remains good for 6 months and even more too!!!
Comments