Traditional Sambar

This is a traditional sambar recipe from my mom's kitchen. In our house growing up, our everyday meal included rice, a gravy like sambar, rasam..etc and a side vegetable, egg or meat. So sambar was one of the most common gravies made..and was everyone's favorite :)

Ingredients:
Dal - 2 cups
Water - 5 cups
Onions, diced - 1 large
Tomato, diced - 1 large
Turmeric powder - 1 tsp
Sambar powder - 1 Tbsp
MTR sambar powder - 1Tbsp (optional)
Cilantro, chopped - handful
Asafoetida - 1 pinch
For Tadka:
Mustard Seeds - 1 tsp
Jeera - 1 tsp
Curry leaves - 5-6 nos

Method: 

1. In a pressure cooker, add dal, onions, tomato, asafoetida, water and all the powders, salt and cook for 3 whistles and switch off.
2. Meanwhile in a small pan, heat oil and add mustard seeds, jeera and curry leaves.
3. Remove the lid from the cooker and heat in medium flame and adjust salt and sambar powder according to taste and bring to boil. Add the tadka, cilantro and remove from flame. 

Homemade Sambar powder is nothing but a combination of coriander seeds and chilly powder. But if you don't have that you can just add readymade sambar powder. This recipe is for plain sambar. You can add any kind of vegetable to it and it will add more flavor and taste to it..The most common veggie suggestions are brinjal/eggpant, radish, capsicum, carrot..