You might also like these recipes for traditional south Indian sambar and white pumpkin sambar. It’s almost a given that you cannot go to a Tamil home without being invited to stay for a meal. Tamilians love to feed as much as they love to eat, and when we go to Chennai on our visits back to India it is not unusual for us to have two lunches, two dinners, and umpteen snacks, all in a single day, as we make the rounds of our relatives’ homes. When we lived in Bombay, we were not above exploiting all this hospitality. The mother of one of our friends, Malathy, was a great cook. Luckily our home was not far from Malathy’s, and whenever we were craving a great homecooked Tamil meal Desi and I would just drop in for a visit, sure that we’d be well fed. While almost any meal you’d eat in a Tamil home would be special, we were never happier than when we were served sambar, a delicious vegetable and lentil stew. Of these, vengaya Sambar or Onion Sambar, a delicious dal made with tiny red onions, was one of Desi’s favorites. It was also one of the first types of sambar I learned to cook when I started to putter around the kitchen. Many years – and hundreds of sambars later– I want to share with you this classic dish beloved in every home kitchen in Chennai. My version is made with fresh ground sambar masala that takes just minutes to put together. The red pearl onions (chinna vengayam in Tamil) are key to this dish because of their unique flavor. If you can’t easily find them in your grocery store don’t be tempted to substitute with the more commonly available white pearl onions because you just won’t get the same flavor. Check to get new recipe updates by email.
Red pearl onions are sold both fresh or frozen at Indian grocery stores and buy the fresh ones if possible because while the frozen onions are lower on labor (you don’t have to peel them), they can sometimes be chewy. If you absolutely cannot find red pearl onions, I’d advise buying shallots instead and cutting them into small pieces. Vengaya Sambar tastes best poured over some hot boiled rice with a side of spicy potato curry, like these Bombay Potatoes. And don’t forget to toast up some poppadums for a memorable meal.
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