Mixed Millet and Lentil Kadambam

This dish is one of my favorite one pot meals and gets made very frequently in my kitchen. At least twice a week, I should say. Kadambam is a flavorful, spicy and wholesome meal from Tamilnadu, prepared with a medley rice, lentils and vegetables. When I started to incorporate millets into our diet, the first thing I did was converting all one pot rice meals that were being cooked in my kitchen to millet based dishes. No surprise, this one among those is being made again and again for the ease and comfort apart from it being a tasty meal on it's own. 

The kadambam can be cooked with a single variety millet and pigeon peas. This can be pressure cooked for a quicker version and I do so when I am using toor dal aka pigeon peas to cook it faster. I choose to go with masoor dal if I am cooking in a pot over stove-top since the dal cooks in around 20 minutes. The same time it takes for the millet and the vegetables to cook. This dish takes around 30 minutes to go from stove to plate even if pressure cooker is not used.

In this recipe I used a combination of millets and lentils. I used proso millet, barnyard millet and kodo millet. I used toor dal (pigeon peas), moong dal (yellow lentils) and masoor dal (red lentils). Any combination of vegetables that hold shape while pressure cooked can be used here. Sometimes I add a bit of jaggery too to the kadambam. The sambhar powder, tamarind and chili powder quantities I mentioned below can be taken as guidelines since the potency varies from one variety to another one when it comes to those ingredients and we eat somewhat on the spicier side. Taste and adjust the quantities according to one's preferences.

Ingredients: (4 servings)
1/2 cup mixed millets
1/2 cup mixed lentils
1/4 cup peanuts (optional)
1 onion, peeled and diced (optional) 
2 tomatoes, chopped 
3 cups chopped mixed vegetables (1 used 1 big sized potato - cubed, 2 carrots - peeled and cubed, 20 green beans - cut into 1 inch pieces and peas. Vegetables like drumsticks, brinjals can also be used.)
1/8 tsp. turmeric powder
Salt to taste (I used about 1.5 tsp. salt.)
1 to 2 tbsp. sambhar powder (The quantity depends upon how spicy and strongly flavored the sambhar powder is. I used homemade sambhar powder.)
About 2 tbsp. thickly extracted fresh tamarind puree
2 tsp. mild chili powder
2 tbsp. ghee and/or oil
1 tsp. mustard seeds
1 tsp. cumin seeds (optional)
10 - 15 curry leaves
 2 pinches of asafoetida powder

Directions:
* Wash lentils and millets in two exchanges of water and drain. Add millets, lentils, peanuts, vegetables, turmeric powder and 2 cups of water to a 3 ltr. pressure cooker directly or to a container that fits into a big pressure cooker. Pressure cook for 3 whistles and turn off the stove.
* When the valve pressure is gone, remove the lid and add salt, sambhar powder, tamarind puree, chili powder and 3 cups of water to the millet - lentil mixture. Bring the mixture to a boil. Taste and adjust the seasonings if preferred. Also add water if it appears too thick. Please note that the kadambam thickens once it cools down.
* If using a pot to cook kadambam, follow the same procedure but keep adding the water as needed.   
* Heat ghee / oil in a small pan and add mustard and cumin seeds. When mustard seeds start to sizzle and pop, add curry leaves and asafoetida to the pan and turn off the stove. Add it to the kadambam and stir well to combine.
* Serve warm with papad / chips.
 
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