Context and Khichdi

A note about my context: I'm American. My husband is Gujarati, born in Calcutta, living in Chennai for many years. We eat vegetarian food at home: South Indian for breakfast and Gujarati for dinner. I usually make something Western for myself in the middle. My cook, Mary, is a Tamil Christian; the maid, Lakshmi, a Telegu brahmin. The gardener, Chinnaraj, is a Tamil Hindu; the watchman, Bahadur, a Nepali Hindu. My neighbours on three sides are Telugu Hindu; Malayali Muslim; Tamil Hindu. I speak functional Tamil, better Hindi and Urdu. I can read and write all three, but not well - my spelling is terrible. I understand Gujarati, but don't speak it. We speak English at home - my husband thinks in English, but speaks good Hindi and Gujarati, okay Bengali and comical but effective Tamil. We watch TV in English and Hindi, mainly, but sometimes in Tamil or Bengali.

I wanted this blog to have a significant component of South Indian culture in it, but lots of other things keep catching my attention. Chennai was once a fairly - not entirely - homogeneous place, but it's not anymore. And it gets more cosmopolitan all the time. I am trying to identify the origins of the things I write about - this is North Indian, this is Gujarati - but really, it's all mixed up and it's all here. So ... I just wanted to clarify things... (insert smiley face)

Now that that's clear, I move on to my next topic: We had dinner at a small Gujarati restaurant near our house, Bhavai. There aren't many Gujarati restaurants in Chennai, and we thought it would be an adventure. But the food was so awful, so awful, that I resolved to post here the recipes for two very basic, easy and delicious Gujarati dishes which the Bhavai cook botched up completely, khichdi and kadhi. These are taken from a cookbook, Gujarat nu Jaman (with text in English) by Devaki Bubbar, because we cook at home without written recipes. But I have made both of these dishes from the book, and they're very good. Ramesh says that the kadhi is the type served at Gujarati weddings.

(By the way, I have a strong, though unscientific, belief that the Tamil dishes pongal and mor kozhumbu were adapted from khichdi and kadhi. It's certainly possible - there have been small groups of Gujaratis in Tamil Nadu for centuries. Maybe I'll post recipes for pongal and mor kozhumbu later - in case any intrepid cooks would like to make the comparison.)

Khichdi and kadhi go together. You can add a vegetable, papad and some pickle, and you have a meal. Or you can eat Khichdi-kadhi alone. Gujaratis like to eat leftover khichdi cold, with oil mixed in. I find this icky, so I put it in the microwave, and spoon some yoghurt on top.

Khichdi

Serves 4

Ingredients:
1 cup moong dal
3/4 cup rice
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
10 whole peppercorns
4 1/2 cups hot water
2 tblsp ghee
salt to taste

For tempering (note: this is my addition):
1 tsp cloves
1/4 tsp. asafoetida
ghee

In a small frying pan, heat the ghee - about a tablespoon. Add cloves and asafoetida, fry until the fragrance rises. Mix the moong dal and rice together. Rinse thoroughly and drain off the water. Put in a pressure cooker (you can do this in a regular saucepan -- just boil everything until it's done, but the pressure cooker is quicker). Add whole peppercorn, hot water, salt, turmeric, and the tempered spices. Pressure cook on a high flame up to three whistles, then lower the flame and cook for ten minutes. Set the pressure cooker aside until the pressure subsides. Add ghee to the hot khichdi and stir. Adjust seasonings.

Kadhi

Serves 4

Ingredients:
2 cups sour yoghurt
2 tblsp jaggery (note: we use only 1 tblsp. you can substitute brown sugar)
2 tblsp besan (chickpea flour)
1 inch piece fresh ginger
2-3 curry leaf stalks
1/2 cup coriander leaves
salt to taste

For tempering:
1 inch piece cinnamon
5 cloves
1/4 piece fenugreek seeds
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1/4 tsp asafoetida powder
1 tblsp oil

Whip the yoghurt and add enough water to obtain pouring consistency. Mix in the chickpea flour, stirring until lumps are dissolved. Peel and finely chop ginger. Chop or grate jaggery. Chop coriander leaves.

To the yoghurt add ginger, curry leaf stalks, jaggery and salt. Place on a high flame and stir constantly for 15 minutes, until the chickpea flour cooks. Adjust seasonings. The kadhi should be just slightly sweet, and pourable but not watery.

Heat the oil in a separate pan and add cumin seeds first, then fenugreek, cloves, cinnamon, and lastly asafoetida. Fry spices until the fragrance rises. Pour into the kadhi, and simmer all together for two minutes. Garnish with chopped coriander.