Tamil Nadu Style Bottle Gourd Sambar Recipe

Shwetha Bhat is passionate about food and cooking. She loves to experiment in the kitchen and share her recipes.

About Bottle gourd sambar

This is traditional Tamil Nadu style sambar which is very healthy, with the combination of lentils and bottle gourd. You can replace bottle gourd with other vegetables like brinjal, pumpkin, drumstick, beans, peas or can use mixture of these vegetables. So, the variations are countless. It's very simple, tasty and healthy dish which is quick to make. Mild recipe. So kids friendly and easy on tummy too. Heavenly sambar with easily available ingredients. Coconut paste used gives aromatic flavor to this recipe. Perfect combination with rice, but also goes well with dosa, chapati, idly.

Cook Time

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup moong dal, can replace with toor dal also
• 1 bottle gourd, peeled and chopped
• 3/4 cup fresh coconut, grated
• 8-10 shallots or sambar onions, skin removed
• 1 1/2 teaspoons cumin seeds, to grind and to temper
• 2-3 teaspoons sambar powder, home made or store brought
• salt according to taste
• 1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds
• 1 teaspoon urad dal or split black gram
• 1-2 red chilies, broken
• a spring of curry leaves
• 1 cup water, or as required
• 1-2 teaspoon oil or ghee

How to make Tamil Nadu style bottle gourd sambar

1. Rinse 1/2 cup of moong dal in water for a couple of times. Take it in a pressure cooker, add water, close the lid and take 2-3 whistles or till it becomes soft.
2. Wash and peel bottle gourd, cut them into equal sized cubes. Keep aside.
3. Let the pressure release by itself, transfer the cooked lentil to a vessel, smash using ladle, add cubed bottle gourd and cook. (Add water if required).
4. Cook in low to medium flame till bottle gourd turns soft.
5. In the meantime, grate 1/2 cup of fresh coconut (or you can use store brought).
6. Take grated coconut in mixer jar, add 1 teaspoon of cumin seeds and 7-8 sambar onions or shallots, add little water and grind coarsely.
7. Then add 2-3 spoons sambar powder, grind them to smooth paste. Add water if required.
8. Add this ground paste to cooked bottle gourd, add salt, stir well and let it boil for 3-4 minutes in medium flame. Switch off the flame.
9. In another pan, heat oil or ghee, add mustard seeds and cumin seeds, let it splutter.
10. Add broken red chilies, urad dal, heat till urad dal turns golden brown.
11. Add fresh curry leaves. Switch off the flame. Add this tempering to bottle gourd sambar, mix well and serve hot with rice, chapati, idli or dosa as side dish.

Pictorial

More about the recipe

1. Here I used moong dal which can be replaced with toor dal (pigeon pea). Both tastes very good.
2. Same sambar can be done with mixed vegetables like beans, snake gourd, potato, cabbage, carrot, pumpkin,drumstick, green peas etc.
3. Adding drumstick will give different flavor to this recipe.
4. You can use big onions instead of shallots. But shallots tastes good.
5. You can adjust the water according to consistency required. If you want thick sambar, then add less water.
6. Using gingely oil will enhances the flavor of this recipe.
7. Use fresh coconut to make the sambar more flavorful.
8. Don't use tamarind for this recipe.