Spicy Lentil Soup(Sambhar)

Love your heart eat lentils. lentils are a very good source of cholesterol-lowering fiber ,folate and magnesium. Lentils also provide good to excellent amounts of six important minerals, two B-vitamins, and protein-all with absolutely no fat.

If you are from India, you probably make lentils everyday. Sambhar's spicy flavor goes best with rice and rice cakes(idli). It has goodness of lentils and heat from spices which gives it a subtle taste of nature's best.


What you'll need is
1/2 cup Yellow Split Lentil(Tuvar\toor Dal)
1 Medium sized Carrot sliced
1 medium Plum Tomato chopped
1 cup green pumpkin or squash or zucchini cut in cubes
1/2 onion or 2 shallots
1 big Clove of Garlic
1/2 inch Ginger root or use 1/2 teaspoon Ginger garlic paste.
1/2 teaspoon Turmeric
1/2 teaspoon Red chilly powder
1/2 teaspoon of Cumin powder
1/2 teaspoon of coriander powder
1 tablespoon of tamarind paste in 11/2 cups of water
1 sprig of Curry leaves
1 Tablespoon of olive oil
1/2 teaspoon Cumin seeds
1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds
1/8 teaspoon fenugreek seeds(Methi)
1 teaspoon Salt

To make this spicy Soup
Cook the Lentils
Wash and Soak lentil for 10minutes

Use a pressure cooker(it saves lot of time) to cook the lentils.. Add a cup of water and soaked lentils along with salt and turmeric. Let cook on medium flame for about 10minutes. Now mash the cooked lentil and set aside.
Cook the veggies and mix in the mashed Lentils
Heat Olive oil in a saucepan on medium high .Slice the onion and saute in EVOO for a minute along with cumin seeds, mustard seeds and curry leaves. Add minced ginger and garlic saute for another minute before adding rest of the spices ,vegetables and tamarind juice. Simmer till vegetables are tender then mix in the cooked mashed lentils. Simmer for another 5 minutes and smell the aroma filling in every corner of your home.
Get the rice ready and serve with this hot spicy Soup with a curry on side.


Health nut Tip
Don't get intimidated by the long list of ingredients. To make life easy use a teaspoon of "Sambhar or Rasam powder" and eliminate 3 ingredients(Cumin powder,coriander powder and chilly powder)

Health Nut Note
Eating too much starchy white rice is not a part of healthy diet. Its important to control your portion of rice . Instead of using just white rice ,try mixing some brown rice.

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