Kadhi (or curried buttermilk?)

Kadhi and Khichdi is another staple in many parts of the country, though the specific combination and way of making described below is typically Gujju. The khichdi is always made with dal and rice, though the tempering differs from region to region. The kadhi, is always made with buttermilk, but is sweet only in Gujarat. But no matter what, on a cold winter evening, no other meal combo comes close as the perfect dinner.

We also make kadhi in place of dal some days at lunchtime. It pairs well with the bhindi shaak mentioned earlier. And it works well when you have leftover yoghurt/ dahi that is turning sour.

Khichdi follows in the next post.

Sweet Kadhi (for 4-5 people)

Mix 2 cups of buttermilk/ blended plain dahi/ yoghurt with 3 cups of water. It should be blended smooth, no lumps. Check for the sourness of the mixture, if very sour*, add another cup of water.

Start to boil in a large-ish pan. Add salt and then check sour-ness again.

When warm, add 2 heaped tbsps of besan/ gram flour and blend again**. We use a hand held blender but it can also be churned.

Add table tennis ball sized piece of jiggery (or 3 tsps of sugar), some curry leaves, 2 large green chillies slit in half, 1 tbsp chopped coriander.

Then we temper. In a small pan or whatever, add 2 tsp of ghee/ butter (you can replace 1 tsp of ghee with 1 tsp of oil). When its hot, add ½ tsp mustard seeds, 1-2 clove, ½ inch piece of cinnamon, ¼ tsp methi/ fenugreek seeds, ½ tsp jeera/ cumin seeds. Add to boiling yoghurt mixture.

Check the balance of spices. Add more jaggery, chilli, salt according to your taste.

Let the pot boil for another 10 mins. At the end of it, you should have a smooth blend, which just about coats the back of the spoon. If the kadhi is too thin, add another tsp of besan/ gram flour mixed in a little water. If too thick, add some more water.

As with the dal, the ideal kadhi is neither too thick nor thin, neither to sweet, hot or sour. It should be just right. But of course, ‘just right’ is largely a matter of personal preference.

* With ‘very sour’ being the taste that makes you screw up your face!

** Besan/ gram flour and buttermilk belong to two separate categories of food (in terms of heating/ cooling/ whatever) that must not be cooked together, according to Jain dietary laws. Also, if the buttermilk is cold, the besan will not mix properly. So, whichever reason you may choose to believe, let the buttermilk turn lukewarm before you add the besan.

2 Reason’s for Posting a Kothmir/ Coriander Chutney recipe

1. There is really nothing spectacular about coriander chutney. I mean every Indian kitchen worth it’s salt must have its own version. But my MIL’s coriander chutney was something else. Like so much else that’s Gujju, this was also simultaneously sweet, spicy, tangy and of course coriander-y.

2. A Gujju friend specifically asked how its made!

So here goes, in very approximate terms as usual*:

A generous fistful of coriander/ dhania/ kothmir, well washed, stems separated (1 1/2 cups if I must be more specific)

5-10 stems of mint/ pudina (measuring less than half a cup of the leaves)

3 tbsp of raw groundnuts/ peanuts

1 heaped tsp sesame

1 heaped tsp cumin seeds/ jeera

2 large green chillis (our chillis are about 3 inches long, so that’s what I mean by large)

A table tennis ball sized piece of jaggery

Juice of 1 lemon (our lemons are a bit more than 1 inch across)

A small bell pepper/ capsicum/ simla mirch (optional)

Salt to taste

Grind the cumin/ jeera, raw groundnut, sesame, chillis, jaggery, lemon juice and bell pepper/ simla mirch. When almost ground, add the coriander and mint leaves and grind till fine. Check sweet, chilli, and all other flavour levels and add whatever else suits your fancy.

It keeps refrigerated for 3-4 days.

Note: My MIL says a bit of green garlic (fresh garlic) also goes well in this chutney. And she adds that that quality of the chutney depends entirely on very good quality ingredients.

* You can check quantities of the ingredients in the pics. We added all you see there.

‘Punjabi’ Shak

I first came across an entire range of foods known as ‘Punjabi’ food here in Gujarat. It referred to just about all the rich, tomato/ onion gravy based veggies, naan/kulcha/ parathas that was dished out in restaurants in Ahmedabad, and probably in other parts of Gujarat as well . Needless to say such a category does not really exist ( I doubt if one could find a homogenous ‘north Indian’ cuisine) and the foods in this category broadly refers to stuff not usually cooked on an everyday basis in a Gujarati household, and comprising richer gravies and (non-Jain*) ingredients such as tomatoes, onions and garlic.

To come back to the recipe in question, when my MIL makes a gravy using onions and tomatoes, it is called a Punjabi shak (shak being the Gujarati terms for veggie preparations and raw vegetables both). Its simple enough, and tastes great!

Punjabi shak/ Veggies in tomato- onion gravy

Cube/dice veggies of choice (carrots, peas, cauliflower, beans) and boil with a little salt. We had about 4 cups of boiled veggies.

Grind to a watery paste 1 large onion and 2 largish tomatoes. We had 2 cups of paste.

In a wok/ pan, add 3-4 (or more) tbsps of oil/ ghee/ butter, add 1/2 tsp of hing/ asafoetida, and the onion-tomato paste. Add 1 tsp of crushed garlic, add some more if you like the veggies garlick-y. Keep on a medium flame/ heat throughout.

Add 1/2 tsp each of chilli powder and turmeric, 1 tsp of coriander-cumin powder, and 2 tsp of garam masala// kitchen king. Let the whole thing cook till it lets off oil.

You can add 2-3 tsps of sugar/ jaggery. But feel free to leave it out if it hurts your non-Gujju sensibilities to add sweet stuff to spicy veggies, but I personally think jaggery rounds off the spices quite well.

Add the veggies, a fist full of chopped coriander, and let it simmer. Adjust salt, spices at this point and let it simmer for about 10 mins. The gravy should not taste raw, and the veggies should have taken on some of the spice and flavour as well.

Garnish with more coriander and eat!

* A pedestrian understanding of Jain food is that it simply does not include anything that grows below the ground, such as onions and garlic. I hope to develop a better understanding of Jain dietery logic in the coming years of association of my Jain family-in-law.

The Fantastic Four

The four ingredients that I have unfailingly used in these early days of cooking are chilli powder, turmeric powder, dhana jeeru or coriander-cumin powder, and jaggery (solid molasses (for want of better description) or gud). There’s also hing/ asafoetida, which makes it the Famous Five actually, but anyways.

This is especially true of daily veggies which are spiced with these ingredients, give or take different quantities.So what I describe for cabbage and ladies fingers/ okra/ bhindi below, could be well adapted to potatoes, cauliflower, bottle gourd/ winter melon/ lauki/ doodhi, and veggies that I dont know the english terms for, like turia and tindoda.

Veggies simply sauteed

Start with finely chopped cabbage or okra/bhendi (These are the two variations I’ve made and you can see photos for). You should have about 6 cups of chopped veggies.

In a wok/ pan/ whatever you have, add 3-4 tbsps of oil. (Add more if you like, it doesnt matter really; the veggies will taste great and about 50 yrs later your arteries might clog!)

Add 2 tsp of mustard, and once it sputters, add 1/2 tsp hing/ asafoetida. In case of bhindi/ okra, add 20-25 grains of fenugreek/ methi seeds instead of the mustard.

Add the veggies, add salt and mix it up. Cover the pan and let it sit till the cabbage is cooked, or in case of bhindi/ okra, till the stickiness is almost gone.

Add 1 tsp each of chilli powder, turmeric, and 1 and 1/2 tsps of coriander-cumin powder. Adjust and add more if you like. (the MIL says that the colour of the veggies is dulled by too much coriander-cumin, so beware. You want the final dish to look bright and yellow, or bright and green in case of bhindi.)

If your making cabbage, add some jaggery, like 1 tsp full. Again, sugar can, but the taste is sharper and not quite the same. No jaggery to bhindi.

Let it cook to your satisfaction. Then eat with previously mentioned dal and rotis/ rice.

Notes: Again a case of approximation of spices to suit your taste. I would suggest doing a trial run with the amounts I have written and then adjusting. Also the amount of cooking/ leaving the veggies crisp is entirely up to personal preference.

First steps: Sweet Dal

You ask the woman on the street about Gujarati food, and chances are she’ll tell you its all sweet. Not entirely wrong, in that Gujju food does blend the sour, spice and sweet rather effortlessly. The grandam of Indian cooking, Tarla Dalal, who is Gujarati herself, calls this being balanced. And the quintessential example of ‘balance’ that comes to my mind is the sweet dal. Predictably enough, it was the first thing I learnt to make from my MIL in the kitchen.

The sweet dal is almost soupy – thin and intensely flavoured. And very different from its rich Punjabi, sweet Bengali, or spicy Tamil kozhambu cousins*. It truly has a bit of everything – chilli, sweet stuff, lemons and such sour stuff – but I must admit that initially, the idea of ’sweet’ dal took a bit of getting used to. And now that I am used to it, word goes round that Gauri has three bowls-ful of sweet dal everyday!

Sweet Dal

1 cup Tuar dal (also known as arhar dal or yellow pigeon peas, suffices for 6 people), cooked in 3 cups of water (pressure cook for 4 whistles or boil till soft/ can be mashed)

Blend the cooked dal, put it to boil in a large pot.

Add ½ tsp chilli powder, 1 tsp coriander and cumin powders mixed, ½ tsp turmeric and 2 large green chillies.

Add a table-tennis ball sized piece of jaggery or 2 tsps of sugar (but jaggery/molasses is better).

Squeeze the juice of 1 lemon. Or dried mango pieces or anything equally sour.

Add some curry leaves if you want.

And all this to be added to the dal that’s boiling in the pot.

Then we temper the dal. In a separate container (a small one usually or any pan), add two spoons of ghee/ oil. Add ½ tsp mustard, and once it sputters, add ¼ tsp hing/ asafoetida, 15-20 methi/ fenugreek seeds, ¼ tsp whole cumin and 1 clove (if you like).

Let the whole concoction boil for 10 mins. Taste and adjust sweet, sour and chilli according to your preference. And let it boil another 5-10 minutes till the flavours are well blended.

Things to remember:

The spice quantities are very approximate. Do keep checking at every stage to adjust the flavours to your own tastes.

Dont hurry through with the boiling, the dal must boil for 15-20 mins for the many flavours to meld. For me, the mark of a good dal is when I cant quite distinguish the different flavours from one another.

* Someday when this blog has grown, exhausted Gujju recipes, and I’m still writing, I will add the recipes for these other dals that I am also very fond of.