I was all set to meet the husband for a romantic lunch, but Bangalore being crowded, overpopulated, Bangalore, the traffic was such that it was either the lunch or the airport. And that airport had a plane parked which was going to take us to Goa! So really there was no dispute, the airport on time – it was.
I surprised our caretaker with a lunch request. She wasn’t prepared to make anything since I had announced gleefully about my romantic plans. So she hemmed and hawed, wondering what to make. (And I was feeling fussy about food that day!) Her husband (I have mentioned him before in my blogs. He is a complete foodie- for which I am eternally grateful!) Well her husband suggested “Kachcha Sambhar” in his typical local accent. It took him three repeats of the word before I realised that is what he actually meant. Raw Sambhar.
I have learnt to experiment and sometimes leave the suggestions to the experts. AND I WAS NOT DISAPPOINTED. In fact, I was in food paradise. Every spoonful going in was ambrosia. Now I love garlic, and I love spice, and the most fun part was it has not one drop of oil!! Perfect right??
We did take off to Goa, and we had an amazing time, caught up in that leftover romance and all that! 😛 But I raved and raved about the Kachcha Sambhar, and he finally told me to use other methods to turn him on!! ( 😛 we are a foodie family!!)
Here is the recipe — the tomatoes have to be burnt — burnt black on a high flame. Wait for it to cool, and skim the skin off. Please do wait for it to cool — this way the skin comes off and does not leave small pieces of black burnt skin behind. We don’t want any black stuff in the sambhar. Same goes for the green chilly.
This is a very spicy dish. Deseeding the chilly reduces the spice. If you want it less spicy, reduce the quantity of the chilly, but don’t delete it completely. That would be a SIN! and Karma will pay you back!!
Tastes absolutely amazing with rice and a bland veggie. I love it with chilla. You make your own combinations and message me.
I was on the floor worshipping this dish! Hope you like it too!
Ciao!!
- 2 tomatoes large size
- 1 Green Chilly medium spicy
- 1 tspn salt
- 1 tbsn + tspn onions very very finely chopped
- 1 Tspn garlic very very finely chopped
- 1 tbspn corriander roughly torn
- 1.5 Cups Water Clean, filtered.
- Burn the tomato over high flame. Tomato should be rotated. It should char completely.
- Burn the green chilly over high flame. Rotate and burn till completely charred.
- Let the tomato and chilly cool.
- When cooled, peel the black skin off the tomato and discard.
- Wash your hands so that no black stuff sticks back on the peeled tomato
- Chop as finely as possible. This reduces the time required later while pureeing with hand blender.
- Peel the black layer of the green chilly. Deseed the chilly. (This is very important)
- Chop the chilly into small pieces.
- To a pot, add the tomatoe, green chilly, salt and water. Mix well with a hand blender. No large pieces of tomato should be left.
- There will be a few small pieces of tomato floating around, let them be.
- Transfer contents to a serving bowl, add onions, garlic and garnish with corrinader. Serve cold.