Gorikaayi Huli (Cluster beans stew/sambar) - Comfort food at its best

We all have our comfort foods. How does one define 'comfort food'? For me, it is food that puts any queasiness in the stomach to rest, makes all real and imaginary discomfort go away, takes me right to that unconditionally happy state of mind. Tall order, you say? Think about it. Most of us, reach out for food as a means of comfort first, necessity later. It is true in my case and that is why I have a hard time controlling my eating :-).

I have multiple 'comfort' foods. Pongal/huggi/khichdi, mosaravalakki with pickle, steamed rice and saaru are some of the easy picks for me when someone asks me about my comfort food. The Karnataka Huli (known popularly as Sambar) is one of my favorite foods in the comfort category as well. This is easy to put together with the goodness of both proteins and vegetables, has the right amount of spices to tingle your taste buds and if made at the right consistency, not only can it be mixed with rice, served as a dip/side dish for rotis, or had straight out of a bowl as a stoup (Stew+soup) on a slightly chilly day.

Huli is a very basic, frequently spotted staple of the home style meal in Karnataka. The vegetables that go into it differ based on the season and accessibility and the lentil used is almost always toor dal or split pigeon peas. Nammamma made some kind of huli every 2-3 days as it was not only easier to make but also would eliminate the need to prepare multiple dishes. She used to have 'huli pudi' or sambar powder in large quantities and store them but always used to add to the freshness with grated coconut and cinnamon, cloves or raw onions depending on the vegetable she used that particular day. Here is how it works - Huli pudi + freshly roasted cinnamon & cloves + coconut for huli made with cabbage or radish, Huli pudi + raw onion+coconut for huli made with menthya soppu (fresh fenugreek greens) or eggplants. You get the idea, right? huli pudi and coconut would be the constants in the ever changing mixture to get the right balance of flavors between the spices and the vegetables. She could have mixed the huli pudi with the cooked dal + vegetable and called it done, it would have tasted good, delicious and no one would have complained. But the extra effort she took to make that every day dish somehow more special spoke volumes of her cooking with love. I don't know how she had figured it all, but every time she made huli, it just tasted divine.

The consistency of the huli varies by its intended usage as well. If you are planning to mix it with steamed rice, the gravy is slightly more liquidish and the lentil is cooked until it is mashed totally. If it is used as a side dish for rotti and rotis, the consistency is thicker. Lentil would be cooked to different degrees of 'softness' based on which vegetable was pairing with it. I love the dal to be holding shape when it is mixed with greens especially. It just makes it a better texture to the dish. Huli also makes an excellent lunch box item when mixed with rice and a little bit of twist, I will talk about it another day.

Nammamma always made huli with a single vegetable. Kootu is a different matter altogether where it is ok and infact required to mix and match the vegetables but Huli is always kept pure with a single vegetable. For me, her huli recipes always stayed at the top of the list of "World's ultimate comfort food" :-). I do not make huli pudi and store like she did because of our limited consumption but always follow nammamma's guidelines of the subtle nuances in the ingredients when I roast the spice mix in an effort to bring the same taste to my table.

Cluster beans - how many of you use this regularly? I see a lot of people scrunching their noses up at the mention of cluster beans. I get it, it is not one of the most popular vegetables. It has a unique flavor that has the potential to tip the balance of the dish if not handled carefully. I recommend to add this to your repertoire, give it a chance to be an 'acquired taste', with a little nudge this humble vegetable actually has the potential to grow on you:-). This is a seasonal vegetable and makes its way as the temperatures go down and once it is ready to harvest, it can really flood the market. Nammamma used to get it regularly and we also grew it in the backyard and harvested many, many baskets of the vegetable. I didn't care much for the stir fry she made with cluster beans but huli definitely is something you want to taste and enjoy.

This is my Day-2 recipe of the week as I let this staple dish from nammamma's kitchen make its way to the blog. My favorite way to eat this is to scoop warm ladle fulls in to a bowl and spoon the deliciousness slowly into the mouth. I don't need any carbs in the form of rice or roti to go with it either. Hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

What do you need to make Gorikaayi Huli?
20-25 (not too mature) cluster beans
1/2 cup toor dal/split pigeon peas
2 Tbsp black eyes beans (optional, I used it as I had soaked them for something else that day)
1 key lime size tamarind
1/4 Tsp crushed jaggery
1 Tsp salt (adjust to taste)
1/4 Tsp turmeric powder
4-5 curry leaves
For the spice paste: 
1 Tbsp oil
1 Tbsp chana dal/kadle bele
1/2 Tsp urad dal/uddina bele
1/4 Tsp fenugreek seeds/menthya
1 Tbsp coriander seeds
1/4 Tsp cumin
4 black pepper corns
1 inch piece cinnamon
4-5 dry red chilies (adjust based on the heat tolerance)
4-5 curry leaves (optional but recommended)
2 Tbsp grated coconut

For seasoning:
1/2 Tsp mustard seeds
1/8 Tsp fenugreek seeds
1/8 Tsp asafoetida
1 Tbsp oil

How do you make Gorikaayi Huli? 

• Wash, pick any dirt and drain water from the dal. 
• Soak it in 1 cup of water for atleast 30mins
• Wash the cluster beans, and chop tiny portions of the two ends from both sides.
• Chop into inch long pieces. 

• Soak tamarind in 1/4 cup of warm water for 20 minutes and extract the juice, discard any seeds & pith.
• In a pressure cooker, take the pre-soaked dal, pre-soaked black eyed peas (if using), chopped cluster beans, curry leaves, turmeric powder and 2 cups of water. 

• Pressure cook it on medium heat for 3-4 whistles, switch off and let the pressure subside. 
• Heat 1 Tbsp of oil, add all the ingredients listed under spice paste, except for coconut. Roast on medium heat until the spices are fragrant and the dals turn golden. Switch off. 
• Once cool, grind into a smooth paste along with coconut and 1/2 cup of water. Keep this aside until ready to use.

• Once the pressure subsides, open the cooker lid and either transfer the contents to another pot and continue using the pressure cooker as I did. 
• Switch on the stove, put the pot on it, add tamarind extract, jaggery, salt and the ground spice paste. 
• Give it a mix and adjust consistency by adding water as needed. 

• Let the mixture come to a good boil before switching it off. 
• Heat 1 Tbsp oil in a small pan, add all seasoning ingredients and let mustard pop. 
• Pour the sizzling seasoning on top of the huli, cover and let it rest for 15mins before serving.

Notes: 

• Notice how I said 'not too mature' cluster beans and not 'tender' cluster beans. For this recipe, you want slightly mature cluster beans so they have the flavor. If they are really tender, go ahead and make a palya/stir fry as it will not have the flavor to stand out with the huli masala. 
• Since I cooked dal and beans together, I pre-soaked the dal for 30mins to speed up the cooking process. Dal generally takes long time and you don't want the cluster beans to be all mushy. Alternatively, you can cook dal and cluster beans separately until they both reach the cooked consistency you desire. 
• This is one of the special huli recipes which is thicker in consistency compared to normal huli and the lentil is cooked until it is just breaking apart and not completely dissolved. 
• If you do not have a pressure cooker, use a heavy bottom vessel to cook the dal and vegetable but be prepared for atleast an hour of cook time. You can add the cluster beans half way through the process if you are cooking in an open vessel. Slow cooker works well too which doesn't need any baby sitting, you can dump all the ingredients and let it cook for 4-5 hours. 

In the land of royalty - Of Queens, Kings, Palaces, Guards, unparalleled history and ofcourse Brextit

I pulled another disappearing act on everyone, didn't I? Although I knew I would be away from the blog for a little while, didn't realize it would actually take me this long to get back. Life I guess is after all about the kinetic and potential energy, you keep moving and you make progress, you rest and you stagnate. So, first of all, apologies especially to those lovely people who are ever patient with me and my blog. I feel humbled that some of you think my tiny blog is worth your time. For all your love, here I am with a bowl of super delicious stoup(soup + Stew) made typical South Indian style with south indian spices..

But before we go off to the easy, delicious comfort food recipe, I thought I would do my general chitchat. As always, if you are here just for the recipe, scroll down all the way until it says "What do you need..", otherwise stay and read on.Since it has been a while, obviously many things have happened, some I am eager to share, some I am ok to leave alone.. had a totally unexpected visit from a grade school friend (Whatsapp zindabad), had cousins visit me in my remote neck of woods, went on a quick and wonderful holiday to a place I had never been to before in life. Knowing how talkative I can be, I will choose one of the events for the post today, hopefully you will find the information useful and the writing engaging :-)

As I already titled the post, I think I know which one I am going to talk about today :-). We made a trip to the land of royalty recently and oh boy I liked it, everything from the historical palaces to the beautiful sights to wonderful cosmopolitan that London is, I enjoyed every minute of the week we spent there. But then, I was equally happy to come back to the place I have grown to fondly call home in the last decade and half.

It was the week before Brexit happened and I lost many pounds (Oh yes, you have heard that joke more than you want to by now, this is what happens when I take my sweet time to get back to life). While there was undercurrents of what might happen, the surface was all calm and for my 'touristy' pair of eyes, there was nothing to burst my holiday bubble and so we had a gala time.

My experiences in London, these are strictly built on a week long experience of a traveler and should be taken as such, I don't claim by any means to have understood London or its ways .., here are some traveler tips I thought might be useful -

• Very easy and convenient Tube (underground train) system that will let you travel from one part of London to the other as you wish. Buy an Oyster card when you land and load it with anything between 20 & 30 pounds, you can easily travel for a couple of days before you need to reload which again is very easy and available at the entrance of every tube station. If you don't use up all the money you put in, just claim cash back when you leave.
• London is like Bengaluru where it is hard to find locals but is full of people from all over, we met folks that spoke many different languages and from varied background. It was a little confusing to decide which side of the sidewalk you should be on when there is traffic coming from the opposite direction :-) since there were people that were used to left hand and right hand traffic. It was fun though just walking.
• If you are a short term visitor, go ahead and invest in the London Pass. There are many places and sights to visit that come bundled into it and saves a lot of time and energy in figuring out things individually. 
• If you are a theater fan, do not (I repeat 'do not') miss an opportunity to catch a show, the tickets are not cheap by any means but live theater is an experience you can't beat easily. 
• Every public place offers you some amount of walking since elevators and escalators are not everywhere, be prepared to walk. Not all tube stations are hands free (another term for stairs instead of escalators), so you invariably have to walk. I certainly did more than my daily goal of steps that week. 
• Public Toilets (Rest rooms) are hard to come by, I have grown used to this idea of rest rooms accessibility in the US over the years and chuckled when you had to push in a coin to get entry into a rest room (provided you found one) when we were out. If you are travelling with young children, plan ahead. 
• Drinking water - again a rare commodity when it comes to drinking water faucets and fountains. It may be because not many people drink water but our family is like a camel when it comes to water, we drink a lot and store a lot. After the first day, we made sure we carried bottles of water from home to last us the entire day. 
• Weather was great, temperature was in very pleasant 70s splashed with occasional showers but nothing to burst the holiday bubble. Oh, carry an umbrella always, so you are covered if need be. 
• Food portions are smaller than what you are used to if you are travelling from the US and the bill is heavier than what you would expect here. People expect you to order more than one dish when you are at a restaurant and if you are hungry which you will be after all the walking and sight seeing, you will need more :-). London city seemed to be definitely catering to a vast group of health aficionados, it is easy to find healthy food everywhere.  
• Smoking is rampant through out the city, I must have inhaled atleast a few cigarettes worth of smoke myself just by secondary smoking. I didn't notice any marked 'no smoking' zones which could be a deterrent.
• For all the hype we had heard about getting the best Indian food in London (every friend and acquaintance I had mentioned about this trip would tell me how good Indian food is in London), we didn't find any that lived up to the great promise we had. There was a Woodlands we went to that was pretty decent. My guess is we didn't search enough as we were happy eating other food and were satisfied too :-), So no food/restaurant reviews from me :-)
• All brand name stores were pretty much from the US, since we weren't planning to shop much at all except for the souvenirs, we mostly stuck to the small, local gift shops in the area we were visiting. I didn't do much shopping, got loads of British Tea (from Assam ofcourse :-)) and little souvenirs for friends and family. Then there was delicious Swiss chocolates too :-)

Windsor castle and it was one of those cars the Queen stepped into !

We did get to see the queen (from afar though :-)) as she stepped out of the castle and into a car at the head of a motorcade in Windsor, DD has a better version of how there were more than one person dressed as the queen just to act as decoys but then she was thinking Harry Potter :-), We did go and stand in the lines and crowd to watch the Buckingham palace 'change of guards' ceremony but I thought it wasn't a big deal given the crowd, wait times and the visibility to the ceremony, let me not discourage any of you if you are planning to go. I loved the outings where the air was a little more easy to breathe in and outdoors that were not packed as much. If you get a chance to visit the city, go ahead and I guarantee you will have a great time. For me personally, it was visiting all the historical land marks I had read long time back in grade school and also a chance to see upclose a country and its people that influenced and changed India in both good and not-so-good ways. 

If you held a hope all along that there was a recipe worth all this chatter, you won't be disappointed at all. On to simple, every day, common man summer pleasures  ..
I came back home, a little tired to do much and this is what greets me in the backyard :-),

And yes, taht is Flora's face in the corner, she was helping me pick the greens :-)

A beautiful bouquet of tender green Amaranth (Dantina soppu) leaves. There are two varieties of the greens, one has green color all over the leaf and the other has tender red veins on the leaves. I love both and mine is the green one. Since we had travel planned in the summer, this year we decided not to do our annual summer kitchen garden, just didn't feel like orphaning the plants to the Sun when we went traipsing around the world. But nature really cannot be curbed or subdued by human plans and these amaranth plants sprouted up out of the seeds I had thrown in 2 years back. They are very hardy and can keep their sensible heads well under ground during the chilly months and then rise from the soil as soon as it warms up. Last year, we controlled them in the patch to make way for the other vegetables we planted but this year they were on their own, pretty much unruly children in the absence of parents and thrived well as the weather hasn't gotten too hot at all.

I saw the promise of the greens just before we left for the holiday but was too busy to think about them for long. And when we came back, here they were, fully mature to be picked and yet very tender and fresh. We had stopped on the way from the airport to pick up some groceries and I found these fresh, green garbanzo (called soppina kadale in kannada) in the store. Picked a pound of it and when I saw the greens at home, all I wanted was a bowl of comforting, homely, hearty soup made South Indian style. Well, we call it soppina huli (soppu=greens, huli=stew made with vegetables and tamarind with a mixture of ground spices). It was a perfect home coming meal loaded with greens and proteins. Didn't need anything else but used some rotis as props for the picture :-).

Some of you have asked me for the recipe of huli pudi (also known as sambar powder, the signature dish from the south of India) and I haven't got to it yet. I will write a post on it soon, I promise. But in the mean time, this recipe will teach you how to make one kind of sambar and the spice mixture that goes into it. For this particular one, I didn't use any lentils, so it may not qualify as Huli/sambar for some of you who are used to having cooked lentils in them, coconut and the dals in the spice mix provide the needed base. Nammamma made the soppina huli without lentils some times and a slightly thicker consistency so it was a great dip for raagi mudde or chapatis. A break from toor dal once in a while is acceptable :-) but if you are a real hard core sambar with lentils fan, go ahead and add a cup of cooked, mashed toor dal into it. You can replace the greens and beans combo with any vegetable of choice.

What do you need to make soppina huli? 
3-4 packed cups of amaranth leaves (dantina soppu, thotakura)
1 cup shelled green garbanzo (or peas) - skip it if you don't have it
1 cup grated coconut (fresh or frozen)
1 Tbsp chopped onion
1 small tomato chopped
key lime size tamarind soaked in 1/2 cup water for 30 minutes
Salt to taste
1/2 Tsp crushed jaggery or brown sugar

Spice (masala) mix: 
2 Tbsp chana dal
1/2 Tsp urad dal
1/2 Tsp fenugreek seeds
1/2 Tsp cumin seeds
2 Tbsp coriander seeds
1 inch piece cinnamon
2 cloves
1/2 Tsp black pepper
3-4 dry red chilies
5-7 curry leaves
1 Tbsp oil
Seasoning: 
1 Tsp oil
1/2 Tsp mustard
1/2 Tsp fenugreek seeds (optional but increases flavor)
1/8 Tsp asafoetida

How do you make Soppina Huli? 

• Wash the greens in 2-3 washes of water, let the water drain and chop them into small pieces. 
• Shell the garbanzo if you are using and thaw frozen peas.

• Soak tamarind in 1/2 cup warm water to get the extract. 
• Heat a pan, add 1 Tbsp oil and add all the ingredients listed under spice mix and roast on low heat for about 2-3 minutes until you get a nice aroma from the spices and the dals turn golden pink.
• Add chopped tomato and stir in for a minute or two until tomato breaks down and loses the raw smell. 
• Switch off and let cool. 

• Heat a wide bottom pan with 2 cups of water, add the chopped greens and garbanzo and salt. 
• Let it cook for about 10-12 minutes until the greens wilt and the beans become soft to taste. 
• Squeeze the tamarind, extract the juice, discard all the pith and seeds. 
• Add the tamarind extract to cooked greens and let it boil for about 5 mins to lose the raw smell. 
• Take all the roasted ingredients along with chopped onion and coconut to a blender, add 1/2 cup of water and grind to a smooth paste. 
• Add the ground masala to the greens mixture. If you are using cooked toor dal, mash it and add it at this stage. 

• Add jaggery. 
• Let everything come together and boil for a good 5-7 minutes. 

• Prepare the seasoning by heating oil in a small pan, add mustard, fenugreek (if using) and asafoetida. When mustard pops, switch off and pour it on the greens mixture. 
• Cover and let rest for 10 minutes before serving. 

Notes: 

• Greens is the star of this recipe, use packed cups to measure and use tender greens instead of the mature, dry ones. 
• If you plan to add toor dal, reduce the chana dal in the spice mix to half unless you like a really thick consistency. 
• I add tomato to give body to the gravy and also for the taste, you can avoid it and get the sour taste from just the tamarind.
• I added the fresh garbanzo as I had them on hand, don't fret if you don't have them. Use fresh peas if in season, they taste good too. The huli with just the greens tastes awesome as well.

Halasina beejada huli a.k.a jackfruit seeds sambar - Summer sensations from India

Are you wondering why I am talking about jack fruit, well not even the fruit but the seeds while everyone is presenting beautiful creations of the Summer fruit - Mango? Jack fruit is also in season in the hot climates of Asia from Mar-Aug (covers the Summer, doesn't it?) and it is every bit as delicious as the mango though the tastes and textures are very different. Lastly, for me, sitting here in my home far away from where I grew up, jack fruit is in season whenever I spot it in the aisles of my grocery store :-). So that is where the story began. For the first time in over a decade, I found some cut jack fruit pieces in my grocery store a few months back and I didn't even trust my sense of smell until I actually saw the quartered pieces nestled among the vegetables next to some melons. I pinched myself once to make sure I wasn't dreaming, picked it up and then the smell just engulfed me. I didn't think DD would remember eating this fruit while in India but she did and she loved it just as much as her ajji (grand mother) does. BH feigns allergy to jackfruit though I think it is non existent but I don't force him to eat it for selfish reasons :-). So whenever I find the fruit in the store, I bring a piece home and as we opened up the jack fruit to get to the yummy 'fruit' part, I started collecting the seeds that come with it. I made about 2 cups (25-30 seeds) in a matter of few weeks :-)

Back in India, as soon as the jack fruits appeared in the market, my father used to ride on his 2 wheeler and choose a humongous, ripe jack fruit, stand it up in front of his drivers seat (imagine Bajaj Chetak) and support it with his feet (I know it was not the safest way to ride a 2 wheeler but I can't find fault with my dad, ever, let us just say he was a safe driver :-)) and ride back home. We would run to the scooter with an old, partially torn gunny sack, help Dad ease the fruit on to it, hold the corners of the sack and bring it inside. Then, Anna would change into his work clothes - jack fruit cutting is a very messy job, involves smearing the knife, cutting board and your hands with a layer of oil if you don't want the sticky, gooey stuff hanging on to you hours later. Then, we would spread old news papers on the floor, move the fruit with the sack onto the paper, generously apply oil to our hands and sit around expectantly. Anna would prepare the big sharp knife and the smaller slightly blunt ones and cut the fruit into half, then quarters and 1/8ths (yes, it had to be a lesson in fractions even then :-)) and then picking one of the small pieces, would deftly go through all the protective layers to reach the fruit, take one out and say, "Give it to Amma and she will know if it is ripe" :-). My mom who doesn't go overboard with any food, can gorge on jack fruit, it is one of her favorite fruits. He did this year after year as far as I can remember as it was one of Amma's favorite fruits. And he knew how to pick the juiciest, sweetest jack fruit by looking at their outside crocodile like skin and the spacing of the spikes on it.

We would all get our own cut pieces to work through the layers and eat the fruit. There is a saying in Kannada, "Hasidu Halasu tinnu, undu maavu tinnu" which roughly translated means - jack fruit should be eaten on an empty stomach and Mango on a full stomach. Jack fruit can be very filling and that is what we filled ourselves with whenever the fruit was brought home. Some cut portions went to the neighbors and we ate a lot, kept some stored away for later but all the seeds were collected onto a separate plate or news paper sheet. Amma would wash and remove the top layer and keep it for drying. These taste great whether you fire roast them or cook them until soft. The seeds have a buttery texture, taste resembling walnuts. While the fire roasted seeds were sprinkled with salt and consumed as a snack, the cooked ones mostly went into a Huli/sambar or a Palya/dry curry with coconut.

So what is this Huli I am talking about? While Sambar is World (well, almost) famous as an accompaniment to Idli and Dosa, in Karnataka we call it 'Huli' (literally meaning 'Tangy'). It is similar in concept to the sambar but has its own variations from family to family. Huli is a staple dish served with cooked white rice in Kannadiga homes, in fact eating sambar with Idli or Dosa is not a common home style food in Karnataka but more of an acquired taste from the neighboring states and also due to the popularity of restuarants. Idli/dosa is almost always accompanied by chutney or other special items at home. Huli is made with a home made spice powder or using freshly roasted and ground spices. Huli always has lentils (usually Toor dal) and tamarind and Karnataka style of making it includes a single vegetable or some well known combinations such as Aalugedde-eerulli (Potato-onion), badane kaayi-kaalu (eggplants - some whole grains like chick peas or cow peas etc). Jack fruit seeds Huli is special given its seasonal nature and Nammamma made it without adding any other vegetables while I have included some onion and carrots here.

I don't make/keep a lot of Huli pudi or Sambar powder at home since our Huli consumption is limited and I like to freshly roast and grind the spices whenever I make the Huli. Also, since I add or delete a few ingredients in the spice mixture depending on the vegetable used, it works out well for me. You can use your regular sambar powder for this recipe, look at the notes for tips to enhance the flavor.

What do you need to make Halasina beejada Huli? 
3/4 cup toor dal
1.5 cup (more or less) jack fruit seeds
2-3 carrots (optional) - peeled and chopped into bite size pieces
1 medium onion - chopped roughly
2 Tblsp grated coconut (fresh or frozen)
1 gooseberry size tamarind - soaked in water and juice extracted
1 Tblsp salt (adjust to taste)
1/8 Tsp turmeric powder
To be roasted and ground:
1 Tblsp oil
1 Tblsp coriander
2 Tsp chana dal
1 Tsp urad dal
1/2 Tsp cumin
1/2 Tsp fenugreek
2-1 inch pieces cinnamon
1 clove
6-8 red chilies
Seasoning :
1 Tsp oil
1 Tsp mustard
1/4 Tsp fenugreek seeds
4-5 curry leaves
1/8 Tsp asafoetida

How do you make Halasina Beejada Huli? 

• Heat a Tblsp oil in a pan, add all the ingredients listed under "to be roasted and ground" and roast them for 3-5 minutes on medium heat until you start getting a nice aroma and the dals turn pink.
• Switch off and let cool. 
• Take all the roasted ingredients, grated coconut, 1 Tblsp of chopped onion and grind into a smooth paste adding about 1/2 cup of water. 
• Wash the toor dal and jack fruit seeds in a pressure cooker vessel, add chopped onions, carrots and 2 cups of water and cook for 3-4 whistles  - this timing depends on your pressure cooker but the dal needs to be cooked completely and the seeds become tender. 
• Let the pressure subside before opening the cooker, mix the contents, add salt, turmeric and the tamarind extract. Let it come to a boil before adding the ground masala. 
• Mix well and adjust the consistency with water as needed and let it come to a roaring boil before switching it off. 
• Heat oil for seasoning in a pan, add the mustard and fenugreek seeds, let them pop, add asafoetida and curry leaves. Switch off and pour the sizzling seasoning over the Huli. 

• Serve Huli warm or hot with rice or even rotis. 

Notes:

• You can add 1/4 of a medium tomato while grinding the spices to enhance taste. Adjust tamarind based on the tang from tomato.
• Huli always has a tiny bit of jaggery added to it but I don't add it in this particular one since the jack fruit seeds have a faint sweetness to them.
• The consistency of this Huli is generally slightly thicker compared to most other pouring consistency sambars and hence not very well suited for Idli/Dosa accompaniments. Eat it either with rice or rotis. 

• You can skip roasting and grinding the fresh powder and instead use 2 Tblsp of home made or store bought sambar powder. Try dry roasting 2- 1 inch piece cinnamon, take the Sambar powder, roasted cinnamon, 1 Tblsp raw onion, 2 Tblsp shredded coconut and grind it into a paste and add it to the gravy. This brightens up the Huli so much you don't recognize your dated Sambar powder in it :-)