South Indian Lunch Box Recipe Idea 2

The highlight of today’s lunch box recipe idea features healthy millet mini idlis, boiled sweet potato, and manually processed toor dal. The mini idlis I’ve packed are made from no rice Barnyard Millet Idlis, containing 100% millet and urad dal. Also for snack I packed

the store bought baked cheetos.

Sweet Potato

The variety originating in the US tastes different from our classic Sakkaraivalli Kilangu. However, this variety I found is quite similar to ours and is sold under the name of Japanese Sweet Potato in a nearby Indian store. You can refer to this link for cooking instructions.

South Indian Lunch Box Recipe Idea 2

Boiled Sweet Potato
Spicy Baked Store Bought Chips
No Idli Rice Barnyard Millet Mini Idlis
Radish Sambar and
Homemade Ghee

Toor Dal Sambar

It’s Man kattiya thuvaram paruppu sambar (மண்கட்டிய துவரம் பருப்பு), which means soil-processed Toor Dal. In this process, the whole Toor / Pigeon Pea is soaked in red soil mud for a day and then cleaned and split into dal in an authentic way. This dal tastes great compared to other splitting techniques used for dals. Additionally, you can notice that the dal looks vibrant brown, and so does the sambar made out of it. Also the sambar made out of it tastes divine and in stores this red soiled dal is little expensive than the regular ones.

In my maternal grandma’s house, they cultivate millets, grains, and legumes in rotation. Tuvar / Pigeon pea is one among their cultivation, as it grows very well in semman (red soil). Additionally, it doesn’t require much water to grow. I remember during one summer vacation, I also got involved in the Toor harvest. After the harvest, My grandma soaked the grains in mud and splited them using an Ariya Kal, as shown in the picture above.