This is not a curry but there are exotic and aromatic spices ! The potato masala makes a great side dish too.
Masala dosa is a traditional South Indian breakfast pancake stuffed with potato masala, and served alongside sambar (a soupy lentil and vegetable dish) and several fresh chutneys. We don’t eat breakfast at home but love this, so it often becomes a dinner time meal.
The dosa batter is made from urad dal (skinned and split black lentils) and rice. Both grains are soaked overnight with a few fenugreek seeds, then blended until smooth, mixed and left to ferment for eight hours or so. It’s not warm enough for fermentation here yet, so I cheat and use a packet mix. The dosa get cooked on a tawa, a brilliant pan for pancakes, chapatis or paratha.
The potato masala is made by frying off a tsp of channa dal, urad dal, mustard seeds and 10 or so curry leaves, then chopped onion, green chilli and grated ginger. Peeled and chopped potatoes are added with turmeric, salt and water. Simmer until cooked then stir through chopped coriander.
Sambar can be made with almost any veggies on hand, today that was carrot, okra and green beans. I fry a few mustard seeds, then curry leaves, a little chopped onion, garlic and ginger, then add chopped tomatoes, the veggies, water and cooked toor dal. Simmer until the carrot is just tender and add sambar powder.
Sambar powder (technically a curry powder) is available at any decent Asian grocer, mine contains coriander, chilli, turmeric, fenugreek, asafoetida, curry leaf and three types of dal. I make a trillion variations of this soup, it’s great for a light lunch served with toast. If you don’t have cooked lentils on hand, split red lentils (masoor dal) or split mung beans (mung dal) both cook quickly and add the desired thickness.
The traditional chutneys are coconut, tomato and coriander. Seen here from right to left. The packet dosa mix broke up a bit, it’s more difficult to handle than one made from scratch...still tasty !
