Sambar and Chettinad Chicken Pepper curry - first time making South Indian food

Hello sirs.

The food eaten in the southern part of India has quite a few differences when it comes to ingredients, herbs and spice blends when compared to north India. A few days ago I made sambar, which is a spiced lentil soup with lots of colorful vegetables and a tamarind broth. The spices and herbs used are red chillies, fenugreek seeds, coriander, cumin, black pepper, black mustard seeds, turmeric powder and most importantly, curry leaves! It's a very flavorful and slightly tart because of the tamarind, with a nice light broth. It's probably one of my favorite Indian dishes. Paired with the sambar is Chettinad pepper chicken, a spicy semi-dry to dry curry with lots of black pepper and some aged basmati rice, which is very aromatic and delicious. The brand that I used for Laila, in the green package.

The curry leaves that I used were nice, but the taste wasn't as pronounced as I expected. I think that the fresh leaves are the best, but you can use frozen leaves as I did because I'm a cheapskate. Dried leaves are really weak, fyi.

For the best taste I'd recommend making your own masala/spice blends with freshly toasted spices, so much more flavorful than ground spices bought in stores. Doing this however requires you having quite a few whole spices already and having either a mortar and pestle, an Indian wet blender or a coffee grinder. If you're not in the mood to undertake such a project then you can just buy the masala powders at your local Indian or Asian store. Brands like MDH, Everest and MTR are good.

If you like Thai curries and soups then you'll probably love South Indian food. Give it a try!