All these years I have stayed away from home, some of the things which I miss about home include my mum’s food, her humming of songs from Bollywood, her mythological storytelling and also helping her in the kitchen doing small tasks such as vegetable chopping and stirring food etc. Of all the things which my mother used to cook for all us, I miss certain things a lot such as stuffed paranthas and Kadhi Chawal and Sarson ka Saag. Her unique style of making flaky, layered and uniformly stuffed paranthas is just so amazing, which I have never been able to master to date, and I am still learning. And I am so fortunate that mum knows how much I love Kadhi Chawal so that she ensures it is cooked at home, every time I go visit them. But sometimes, I crave for this comforting dish so much that I can’t even wait to go home. So, I learned from her to make it for my own self. And I believe that I have learned to cook a decent Kadhi Chawal now in all these years. It occurred to me that why haven’t I documented this recipe here on the blog until now, and that too when I cook it very often. And there couldn’t be a better time to write her recipe on the blog and dedicate this to her. Please do try this and let me know if you like the recipe.
- 1000 gm plain sour yogurt, preferably full fat
- 1/2 cup chickpea flour
- 2 medium onions, very thinly sliced
- 3-4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
- 1/2 inch ginger, finely chopped
- 1 tsp cumin seeds
- 1 tsp fenugreek seeds
- 1 tsp coriander seeds
- 1 tbsp dried mint
- 2 tsp kasoori methi (dried fenugreek leaves)
- 2 tbsp fresh coriander leaves, roughly chopped
- 1/2 tsp turmeric powder
- 1/2 tsp red chilli powder, increase if you like hot
- salt, to taste
- 2 tbsp refined or mustard oil
- 1 cup chickpea flour
- 1 medium onion, finely chopped
- 1/2 cup water
- 1/2 tsp carrom seeds
- 2-3 green chillies, finely chopped
- salt, to taste
- oil, for frying
- To make pakodas, mix all the ingredients together except oil and whisk well to make a light airy batter. Heat oil in a wok or frying pan, before it starts to smoke. Lower the heat to medium. Taking one tbsp batter at a time, drop into hot oil and fry gently on medium heat, until pakodas start to appear golden.
- To make kadhi, heat oil gently in a big wok. Add cumin seeds, coriander seeds, fenugreek seeds and fry gently for 1 minute. Add chopped ginger and garlic and fry for another one minute. Add sliced onions and fry them for about 3-4 minutes, until they start to look golden. While onions are frying up, whisk the curd with chickpea flour to make a smooth liquid. This can be done using a hand blender or even a hand whisk. Add red chilli powder, turmeric powder and salt to the onions and gently stir for 1 minute. Add the yogurt mixture to the wok, followed by 750 ml of water. Let it come to boil and then reduce the heat to simmer. Add dried mint, kasoori methi and fresh coriander leaves along with pakodas and let the kadhi simmer for about 10-12 minutes, until it starts to thicken up. Serve hot with steamed or jeera rice.