Instant Pot Simple Sambar (Edit recipe)

Sambar, a lentil dish, is a staple in every South Indian home and shows up at least once on the weekly menu. It is a soup like dish made with split pigeon peas, vegetables, spices and tamarind. It’s a very versatile dish which can have completely different taste and flavor depending on the vegetables and spices used in it. The most common vegetables used in a traditional sambar are eggplant and drumsticks, or a mix of vegetables like yellow pumpkin, green beans, carrots, flat beans, green mango . Sambhar also gets its unique flavor from shallots. The next best substitute for shallots are the purple or red onions or any onion for that matter. There is no hard and fast rule with Sambar. In most homes we pretty much use any vegetables available at hand. So this can be an ideal dish for the days when you need to finish off the last of the carrots, bell pepper or green beans in your fridge. Other vegetable options are also on the notes. Authentic Sambar recipe calls for sambar powder, which is a spice blend of red dry chilies, coriander seeds, fenugreek seeds, urad dal, chana dal and a few other spices. But we have simplified this recipe so that it’s easy for everyone to try it without the sambar powder. If you have a pack of the sambar powder in your pantry, by all means use a spoon of it at the same stage when I add all the other spices to the vegetables.