Kadamba Sadam

After many days of making cookies and brownies, I couldn't bear to "cream butter, add sugar". I needed something savory to work with. And what better blog to turn to than Suganya at Tasty Palettes. Her recipes are amazing and her photographs are beautiful. And hers is the chosen blog this month at Tried And Tasted, started by Zlamushka and hosted this month by Curry Leaf at Experiments, Emotions, Experiences with Food.

This is a recipe that we enjoyed growing up but I haven't had it in a long time and had no idea how to make it. I was excited when I found it at Suganya's blog and decided to make it for lunch. As she says, its truly comfort in a bowl.

Kadamba is an assortment or string of similar things and sadam means rice. So this is basically a vegetable curry (made with as assortment of mixed vegetables in a spiced tamarind curry, mixed with rice). When we made this at home, I remember the curry cooked with the rice so that they were all mushed together, but I couldn't wait to try Suganya's version.


Kadamba Sadam
(recipe from Tasty Palettes)

4 cups Mixed Vegetables (I used carrots, peas, shallots and beans)
3 tbsp Tamarind Paste
1 Tomato, chopped
1 tsp Turmeric Powder
1/4 cup Coconut Milk (I left this out)
1/2 cup Toor Dal, cooked till soft and and mushy
1 pinch Asafetida
2 tbsp Cilantro leaves, chopped
Salt, to taste

Spice Mixture:
2 tbsp Chana Dal
1 tbsp Coriander Seeds
1 tsp Urad Dal
6 dried Red Chillies
1 tsp Fenugreek Seeds
1/4 cup Grated Coconut
1 tbsp Oil

Roast the spice mixture ingredients in the oil. Cool the mixture and grind with the coconut to make a smooth paste.

Tempering:
1 tbsp Oil
1 tsp Mustard Seeds
3-4 Curry Leaves

The directions, exactly from Tasty Palettes:

Dissolve tamarind paste in 1 cup of water. In a deep vessel, boil tamarind water along with salt, turmeric powder, tomato and mixed vegetables for about 15 minutes. The vegetable should be fully cooked and the tamarind shouldn’t smell raw anymore.

Add the cooked dal and spice paste and allow sambar to boil for 5 minutes. Stir occasionally. Finally add the coconut milk, if using and switch off the flame. Mix well and let the coconut milk to heat through. Stir in asafoetida and cilantro.

In a small skillet, heat oil/ghee and splutter mustard seeds. Remove from flame and add curry leaves. Add this seasoning to the sambar. Serve this sambar with rice and additional ghee, if preferred.

Mix generous ladles of sambar into rice (called saadam in Tamil), mix well and serve warm ‘Kadamba Saadam’ with crunchy cucumber slices, vegetable chips or appalam. The rice should not be dry, but porridge like consistency.

If you want to include onions, slice ‘em thin and sauté with mustard seeds while seasoning and add to the sambar. Omit asafoetida though, as it doesn’t go well with onions or garlic.


This was true comfort food for me and my family. We loved it. Thanks Suganya!