Tiffin Sambar Powder

Hot idlis and tosai straight from the tawa need tasty condiments to go along. Tiffin sambar is our all time Indian favorite to submerge and dunk the idlis and tosai pieces into it. When it is prepared fresh in your kitchen, you can be sure of the quality of the ingredients and hygiene of the the product produced. I prefer to grind small batch of Tiffin sambar powder to retain it's freshness and aroma. Moreover, we don't regularly prepare Tiffin sambar unless it is to be eaten with idlis. Otherwise, we just use chutney as a condiment for Indian varieties of breakfast. You can make ordinary sambar with sambar powder alone, but adding Tiffin sambar powder will definitely elevate the taste and authentic flavor as how it is cooked in Indian hotels. Larger quantities will need to be stored in a refrigerator to prolong its shelf life. 

Tiffin Sambar Powder

INGREDIENTS:

Dry red chilies - 40g

Coriander seeds - 50g

Cumin - 25g

Black peppercorns - 25g

Fenugreek - 25g

METHOD :

1. Dry roast coriander seeds, black peppercorns, fenugreek, cumin seeds individually one by one until they release the spice aroma and hot to touch.  

Image of dry red chilies, peppercorns, fenugreek, coriander seeds and cumin
before roasting(from left)

 

2. Fenugreek has to be dry roasted till it change deep brown color. That gives nice aroma.

3. Dry red chilies has to be sun dried because they tend to get burned when fried in a pan. So, we want to retain the red color of the chilies, but allow them to crisp up so that the spice powder will have longer shelf life.

4. Now, put all the roasted ingredients into a liquidizer and grind into fine powder. Allow the powder to cool a bit in an open air.

5. Store in an air tight container and later refrigerate.

6. We can use homemade Tiffin sambar powder to make Hotel style sambar for idly and tosai. 

Thank you

Abby