...so unfortunately I cannot report back on the taste because I failed to finish cooking it thanks to not feeling well and then forgot to put everything into the fridge to work on later. 🙃 which made it a pretty unsuccessful day...
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ although one single recipe did not recommend all those vegetables, they were all recommended in either a. the back of the box recipe or b. Crescent Dragonwagon's recipe that I made long ago, except she said butternut squash (no she's not Indian but she spent some time in Kerala and I do not think hers was terribly different from the sambhar I've had at a restaurant or from frozen.)
Possibly it would clarify things to note that the back of the masala box recipe had me cooking the dal alone in plain water, and that (plus it boiling over and scorching in the burner pan/burning on the electric stove element) was the smell I was having difficulties with... but I was also probably feeling somewhat unusually sensitive to smells that afternoon (and some other times last week) and I suspect that I might not have really enjoyed the smell of other food I normally enjoy eating at that time. (I think even the scent of rice--which although I do not eat it on a daily basis is typically a perfectly neutral food--might have been somewhat unappealing right then.)
(all this said, I have an inkling that the box recipe omitted making a tadka (I have no idea if that is the correct regional word) that I think might otherwise be expected (possibly expecting that users would know to do this finishing touch?) so that might, hypothetically, have been disappointing...)
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¯\_(ツ)_/¯ although one single recipe did not recommend all those vegetables, they were all recommended in either a. the back of the box recipe or b. Crescent Dragonwagon's recipe that I made long ago, except she said butternut squash (no she's not Indian but she spent some time in Kerala and I do not think hers was terribly different from the sambhar I've had at a restaurant or from frozen.)
Possibly it would clarify things to note that the back of the masala box recipe had me cooking the dal alone in plain water, and that (plus it boiling over and scorching in the burner pan/burning on the electric stove element) was the smell I was having difficulties with... but I was also probably feeling somewhat unusually sensitive to smells that afternoon (and some other times last week) and I suspect that I might not have really enjoyed the smell of other food I normally enjoy eating at that time. (I think even the scent of rice--which although I do not eat it on a daily basis is typically a perfectly neutral food--might have been somewhat unappealing right then.)
(all this said, I have an inkling that the box recipe omitted making a tadka (I have no idea if that is the correct regional word) that I think might otherwise be expected (possibly expecting that users would know to do this finishing touch?) so that might, hypothetically, have been disappointing...)