Grocery:
1 tomato, diced
2-3 cloves garlic, diced
4-5 curry leaves
2-3 dried red chilis
Vegetable*
1 cup toor daal, boiled
~2 tablespoons tamarind paste

Masala Rack:
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1/2 teaspoon methi seeds (optional)
Sambar powder

1. In a medium or large saucepan, heat about 1 tablespoon of cooking oil on medium heat.  Add the mustard seeds and cumin seeds and cook until the mustard seeds pop.
2. Add the garlic, chili peppers and curry leaves and saute until the garlic is golden and the peppers are slightly blackened.
3. Add the tomatoes and cook until the tomatoes melt.
4. Add about 3 -4 cups of water and bring to a boil.
5. Mix in the sambar powder, salt and tamarind paste. 
6. Stir in the vegetables and continue boiling. 
7. When the vegetables are cooked, stir in the daal (you may need to mash it a little with a whisker or spoon).
8. Taste the sambar and adjust the tamarind paste and salt as need.  Sambar gets its sour taste from tamarind, and it should be a little tangy but not mouth puckering sour.

If the sambar is too liquidy, either let it boil longer or remove some of the liquid and whisk a little rice flour in it then add back to the pot.    

**You can choose from a lot of different vegetables for sambar.  Slightly porous veggies that will absorb the stew but hold up in the liquid work best.  My favorite sambar varieties are:
*Pearl onions – use fresh pearl onions although frozen are good too.  Pearl onions are sweet and have an interesting layered texture.
*Daikon – daikon looks like a big white carrot or parsnip.  It  has a mildly sweet, fresh taste to it.  The smell is heavenly.
*Drumsticks – this is a green, tubular looking veggie that comes canned in most Indian stores.  You suck the seed pods out of the inside which I guess makes it like a meaty drumstick.  The tasty is hearty and very savory.
*Other popular veggies include shallots, green bellpeppers, cauliflower, carrots, radish and eggplant.