Khichdi Kadhi

This is my comfort food!! Quick to make, great in taste and very healthy!! When you are in hurry but want to eat something yummy, filling and comforting. Make khichdi kadhi and enjoy!!

Every region in India has different variants of the humble khichdi!! Came to know about it after I got married and MIL whipped up a different looking khichdi.

The one that I am sharing is Gujarati khichdi. You may find different variants of khichdi in different Gujarati homes too. Some people use chilke wali moong daal, some use yellow moong daal and some even use toor daal!! Tempering and spices used in khichdis also vary. Some do tadka using tel and some use ghee. Some of them add jeera and some other add methi. Some also add cloves and black pepper. Sometimes vegetable too are added to make it more healthy and complete!!

Wow!! One humble dish and so many variants!!

Same thing can be said about kadhi. Punjabi kadhi is different than Gujarati kadhi. And as I have seen different Gujarati homes make different kadhi.

At my home, kadhi is incomplete without green chili, ginger and garlic paste and a generous ghee ka tadka!! And we don't add sugar to our kadhi that many Gujarati families add. Though I like the one with sugar too, but I have a soft spot for the simple version of kadhi that my mom (and my grandmom and her mom and her grandmom) has been making :)

Khichdi Kadhi

Ingredients for khichdi:

1 Cup Rice

1/2 cup yellow moong daal (split green gram)

2 cups of water (may vary according to your rice and daal)

1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder

1/4 teaspoon methi daana (Fenugreek seeds)

salt to taste

2 teaspoon ghee or oil for tadka

1 generous pinch of mustard seeds (rai/sarson)

a pinch of hing (Asafoetida)

Ingredients for kadhi:

2 cups thick curd

1 tablespoon besan

salt to taste

1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder (optional)

1 green chili, 1/2 cm long ginger peeled, 4 garlic cloves peeled - grounded to get a coarse paste (you can use readymade paste too)

2 teaspoon Ghee for tadka (You must use ghee, makes a lot of difference)

1 generous pinch of mustard seeds

a pinch of hing (Asofoetida)

1 twig kadi patta (mitho limdo)

a pinch of jeera

Method for making Khichdi:

1) Mix daal and rice. Wash and soak for 20 minutes. (If you are in hurry you can skip soaking).

2) Add salt, turmeric powder and methi daana to it.

3) Now in a kadai take ghee or oil for tadka. Add mustard seeds to it. Once they crackle, add hing to it.

4) Mix the tadka with the soaked dal rice. and pressure cook for 3 whistles (or whatever time it takes in your cooker to get the rice cooked).

That's it folks!! Khichdi is ready!!

Method for making Kadhi:

1) In a pan take curd and beat it. Add besan to it and beat . Add water to adjust it to a little thicker than sambar consistency. (We like it thick, you can dilute it if you prefer).

2) Add salt, turmeric and green chili ginger garlic paste. mix well.

3) Cook it on medium flame till the kadhi boils. Takes around 7-10 minutes.

Keep stirring continuously. If you stop stirring then the solid and liquid separates. This is called "Kadhi footi gayi" (Kadhi got broken)!! And footeli kadhi is not the done thing.

3) Now for tadka (tempering) take ghee in a small kadai. Plz take ghee, it's really important.

4) Add mustard seeds to it, once they crackle add jeera then hing and in the end kadi patta.

5) Mix it with kadhi and boil for one more time. Should take around 5 minutes. Don't forget to stir continuously.

And kadhi is ready!! Garnish with dhania patta if you have it around.

Khichdi Kadhi

Serve khichdi with kadhi and a spoonfull of ghee. Papad and pickles too tastes great with it. At my home we have Khichdi kahdi with jeera meetha ni bhakhari, papad, methiyu athanu and kanda bataka nu shaak. 

Sending this to Dish it out - Light Dinner event hosted by Preetha and conceptualized by Vardhini..

This post is part of blogathon 2014

+techie ZM 

Handvo | Haandvo | Indian savory cake....

Haandvo is my all time favorite. After mom would declare that she is making haandvo, i would keep hovering around kitchen, till the Haandvo would be done and i could lay my hand on this crispy, cruncy outside and the soft, soft and yummy, yummy inside delicacy!!!

The best thing about it is that apart from being amazingly tasty, it is also healthy and complete food with cereal, pulses and veggies, food can't get better than this!!!

All my neighbours (at Hyderabad and Noida) who tasted this at my home, loved it. My front door neighbour P learnt to make it from me and now makes her own Haandvo and gets Haandva no lot grinded!!

My mom makes it in 2 ways, one is by baking and another is by making it in a pan. As my mom doesn't own oven, she uses the special "Haandva no dabbo". It's basically like a gas oven, where at the bottom you have a tray filled with sand, then on that you keep the actual utensil with food item inside. This way you got slow and uniform cooking for your Haandvo.  (You can even bake cakes in this!!)

I didn't learn to cook my favorite foods at my mom's place, only when i shifted to hyderabad, i realized that in order to enjoy my favorites i will have to learn to cook them. Haandvo is one those things...

I make Haandvo in a Pan, this kind of haandvo is also known as "Dangeli". You can also bake it in the oven.

And let me warn you, this is very addictive, once you make this, you will always make this :)

Haandvo - made in a pan

Ingredients:

Haandva No Lot - 1 Cup - This is available readymade in Gujarat, But if you are not in Gujarat then get

            yours by mixing

           3 Cups of rice (i used boiled rice),

           1/4 cup of Toor Daal (arahar daal/split pigean pea),

           1/4 cup of Chilkewali mungdaal (Split green gram)

           1/4 cup Chana daal (Split bengal gram)

           1/4 cup Urad Daal (Split black gram)

            generally you mix this well and get it coarsely grinded (like Semolina) by local flour mill to get the

            Hadva no lot. You can store this powder in an air tight container for months. But if you are not in a

            mood to visit local chakkiwala then you can soak all of the mentioned stuff together for 3-4 hours

            and grind to a coarse paste and add 1 teaspoon of Besan. This is my grandmom's secret ratio for

            making it softer inside and crispier outside...

Curd - 1 Tablespoon

Green chili paste- 1/2 teaspoon

Ginger paste - 1/2 teaspoon
Turmeric powder - 1/2 teaspoon
Asafoetida - 1 pinch

Salt to taste

Baking soda - 2-3 pinches (If making in the pan, not needed. If baking in the oven then use this)

1 small Lauki/Doodhi/Bottle Gourd (around 300 gms) - washed, peeled and grated
You can also add sugar, but i don't , neither does my mom or grandmom...

For Tadka (Tempering)

Oil - 4 Tablespoon

Mustard seeds/ Rai/Sarson - 3 teaspoon

Sesame seeds/ Til - 3 teaspoon

Ajawain/carom seeds - 3 teaspoon

Asafoetida - 1 pinch

Method:

1) Take the Haandva no lot in a bowl, add curd and water. If using the home made wet paste, then also add 1 teaspoon of Besan (Bengal gram flour). Mix well and keep in a warm place for fermentation for 6-7 hours. (In winters i keep it in a pre-heated oven, in summer keeping in a room works just fine)

2) Once it is fermented, add green chili, ginger, salt, turmeric powder, hing and grated bottle gourd. Mix well. Add water if needed, but remember Bottle gourd will also release water, so careful with it. Batter Should be of the consistency of Idli.

3) In a Non-stick pan on low flame, take 3 tablespoon oil in it.

4) Add mustard seeds to it. Once they crackle, add Sesame seeds, carom seeds and Hing.

5) Now, add your Hadvo batter to the pan. Cover it and let it cook on medium flame for 20 minutes or till the bottom is crispy and golden brown in colour. though keep in mind that for different types of pan time may vary.

6) After this, flip the handvo and drizzle 1 tablespoon of oil on the edges.

7) Cook covered for another 15 minutes.

Take it out and enjoy with green Chutney or tomato ketchup!!!

This recipe goes to 1 year blogoversary event of Pallavi's blog.....

Notes:

1) In place of making a single cake, you can make small cakes in smaller kadais (Pans). This way you can eliminate the need of non-stick pan.

Handvo in a Kadai- Do Tadka (Steps 3 & 4)

Haandvo in Kadai - Add the batter after Tadka (Step 5)

Haandvo in Kadai - Flip after one side is cooked (step 6)

2) You can also add other vegetables (like grated Onions, finely Methi, coarsely crushed peas/corn or grated carrots) in Haandvo, in that case reduce the amount of lauki..

3) You can also bake Handvo in oven. For that, add baking soda to the batter and pour it in a (greased and dusted with flour) baking tin. then proceed to the tadka as mentioned in steps 3 & 4. Pour this tadka on the top of batter in the baking tin. Bake in a pre-heated oven. You can get creative with this and bake it like small cup cakes or in different moulds to get fun shapes.

Sending this to Priya's May 2013 edition of Healthy me and Healthy Us event hosted by Jayanthi

Aalu Methi | Potato Fenugreek Curry - Simple yet yummy!!!

Now, this veggie is pretty common in Northern India, but practically unheard of in rest of India!!! I had never heard of or tasted, Aalu Methi (AKA Potato Fenugreek) till I got married and my MIL whipped up this simple but tasty sabzi one day!!!

The thing about Aalu methi is that, though it is predominantly made in northern states, it has a universal appeal...

Prove, you may ask...So let me tell you, I am a Gujarati, but when I had it first time, I really liked it!!! Ditto for my brother. Also my colleagues in Hyderabad, who were from different states (Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Kerala and Tamil Nadu) enjoyed Aalu methi, whenever I carried it for  lunch!!! Simple lunch of Aalu Methi, Curd and Roti can be very fulfilling and of course it is very healthy...Give it a try...

Ingredients:

(Enough for lunch for 2 people)

4 Big Potatoes

2 cups of Methi (Fenugreek) cleaned, wahsed and chopped

2 Tablespoon oil (you can increase/decrease oil as per your liking)

Salt to taste

3 pinches black pepper powder

1 tablespoon Dhania-Jeera powder (Coriander seeds powder)

Method:

1) Separate methi leaves from the stem. You can include tender stems, but discard harder, more mature stems.

This is how you separate leaves from harder stems

2) Now cut the leaves.

Cut the leaves

3) Wash methi in enough water for 4-5 times, or till you see no dirt in water. This should be around 4 Cups of methi leaves.

4) Peel and cut potatoes in big chunks.

5) In a thick bottomed pan, add oil and heat it, then add potatoes and salt. Mix and cook covered on low flame for 5 minutes.

6) Now add cleaned and washed methi leaves, mix well and cover.

Mix with potatoes and cook covered

7) Cook till potatoes are tender, then add Chili powder, black pepper powder and dhania-jeera powder. Mix well. Keep stirring for about 2-3 minutes.

And you are ready to serve Aalu Methi!!!

Notes:

1) You can increase or decrease the amount of Methi as per your liking.

2) My MIL uses Dhania powder only, but I add Dhania Jeera powder because i normally store it. You can use any of these.

Aalu Methi | Potato Fenugreek

Aalu Methi | Potato Fenugreek