Wednesday, June 07, 2006

Opinion: The complete concoction called "Sambhar"/"Kuzhambu"

When my friend and I were talking for only one and a half hours the other day, the topics were mostly around what she cooked and what I did. Suddenly, I was telling her how I find Kuzhambu or Sambhar like a complete concoction - in terms of health.

Well, it has vegetables, pulses - equate it to vitamins, protein. It has the following tastes - tangy, salt, hot and bitter. Bitter how??? Methi (Fenugreek) seeds that we put for tempering (tadka/thalichchu kottaradu) are bitter. If you add jaggery as some do, it has a sweet taste as well and according to ayurveda, we are supposed have all tastes for a balanced meal - this comes close. It also has little bit of cereal (my mom adds a little bit of Rice flour to it in the end). It has turmeric that is good for the brain. Tamarind has iron content. Mustard in tempering has a heat producing effect so do the chillies while methi is cooling! If you add coconut, then that is cooling as well. Whoever invented this is a genius! Rasam is not like this - at least not so many veggies and no methi to give that cooling effect.

5 Comments:

At 5:01 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

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At 3:59 AM, Blogger Unknown said...

Tatz a good piece of info. Thanx for sharing.

 
At 11:10 AM, Blogger appalam vadaam said...

Thanks for dropping by Pushpa. You have a nice blog too.

 
At 2:16 PM, Blogger archana said...

How very true !!!!

 
At 9:40 AM, Blogger appalam vadaam said...

Hi Archana - Your blog is simply superb. I keep drooling at those wonderful beautiful (am running out of superlatives) cakes hoping that one day I might bake at least one! Thanks for dropping by.

 

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