Meal in a Pressure Cooker*

My father, master of multi-tasking, was good at finding newer and faster ways to do things. Many years ago, my mother was unwell and he had to take over the cooking at home. He had an early morning appointment at work and all of us children were school-going youngsters.

Appa believed in balanced, tasty meals - and could whip one up if necessary and given time. But how to turn out a full-course South Indian meal in a short time? We only had a two-burner gas stove at the time, and a full-course meal needed sambar, rasam, one dry vegetable, and rice.

So Appa decided to use the pressure cooker. In one go, he made rice, sambar and rasam in the pressure cooker, and used the other burner of the stove to prepare a delicious vegetable side dish.

This is how he did it: in three stackable cooker vessels, he arranged the ingredients for the dishes.

Vessel 1 contained these ingredients for sambar:

2.5 cups juice juice extracted from small lime-sized lump of tamarind
2.5 tsps sambar powder
half cup uncooked prewashed toor dal (you may not want to add this directly; see Method given below for details)
radish (or carrots) cut into slices
Salt to taste
curry leaves

Vessel 2 contained these ingredients for rasam:

2.5 cups juice extracted from half lime-sized tamarind lump
2-3 small tomatoes, quartered
curry leaves
1.5 tsp rasam powder
salt to taste
little less than quarter cup of uncooked prewashed toor dal

Vessel 3 contained these ingredients for rice:

2 cups raw rice, washed well
4 cups water

Method: Stack all vessels in the pressure cooker after adding water at the base (I'm assuming that you have basic pressure cooker experience, so keeping the description short). (For the sambar, you may want to cook the dal in a smaller bowl inserted in the larger stackable container. Reason for this separate dal container being this: dal doesn't become pulpy like you need for sambar, unless cooked in plain water. Add quarter tsp of turmeric and 1 cup water for the half cup of washed toor dal). Cook on high heat. When pressure cooker whistle blows, reduce heat to medium and cook for five more minutes and turn stove off.

Wait 15-20 minutes before opening pressure cooker. In a separate saute dish, add few tsps oil and do the tadka with mustard, urad dal, pinch of asafoetida and one red chilli. Add cooked sambar (along with dal, if cooked separately) to this and boil for 2-3 minutes. Add more water if necessary. Mash up the dal in the sambar but don't mash up the cooked veggies. Make a paste of 1 tsp rice flour or cornstarch with water and add to sambar for thickening, if needed. Turn off stove. Garnish with chopped cilantro.

Similarly in another dish, add cooked rasam and more water if necessary. Boil on medium heat till it froths up. Turn off stove. In a separate seasoning dish, add a few tsps ghee and do the tadka with mustard and some jeera. Add this tadka to the rasam. Garnish with cilantro. Add a chilli to the tadka if you want hotter rasam. Squeeze some lemon/lime juice if you want a more tart rasam.

Rice is ready as-is. Eat a hearty meal of sambar, rice, and rasam - along with a vegetable or raitha of your choice. Great way to cook for those short of time.
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*This post is a tribute to my father, who is no longer with us.