Khichdi - िखचड़ी - Rice & Lentil Combo

A few days back I was down and out with food poisoning and extreme acidity, an upshot of too much partying or plain stupidity by eating at grubby joints or maybe both.

The doctors advise was to stop all ‘spicy/oily foods’ and he suggested bland food for a week, along with a motley of pills. To cut a long story short, what follows is the recipe for preparing “khichdi” .

Khichdi is a popular Indian dish, relished all over India. It is also known as khichdee, khichadi, khichuri, or khichari. The various spellings are in existence due to limitations in English language phonetics.The proper pronunciation in Devnagri is िखचड़ी. Khichdi in Indian slang literally means hodge podge or mishmash of things. For those of you, who would rather skip and delve straight into the recipe, grab your mouse and scroll down to Recipe section.

Khichdi essentially is a combination of rice and lentils. Period .There are many variations of Khichdi where some people throw in an assortment of vegetables (cauliflower, carrots, mushrooms, potatoes, beans etc), but that according to me is ‘vegetable pullao’ and not Khichdi. The humble Khichdi has also given rise to kedgeree, a dish popular in England during Victorian times made up of rice, smoked/cooked flaked fish and boiled eggs. My version or recipe of Khichdi is a simple meal which can be cooked in a jiffy (5 minutes) and is very gentle on upset stomachs. Incidentally in northern India when a person is sick he is usually brought off the Rotis / Chappati / Fullkas रोटी / चपाती / फुलका (leavened wheat bread), which happens to be the staple diet of north Indians, and fed rice ( khichdi). I am told the reverse happens in southern India where a sick person (staple diet – rice ) is given Rotis during recuperation. :-)

Before we plunge into the ingredients or recipe, let me tell you that I am a tyro and i could never follow or understand the plethora of cooking steps/recipes, even after hours and hours of googling. The recipes, ingredients and methods are so exotic and numbing at the same time that I am often left wondering as to where can I find all these rare herbs OR the lentil. For someone like me who classifies lentils (Daal / दाल) as yellow daal, green daal, black daal, this can be quite embarrassing. (A local trip to grocery store revealed that they had THREE yellow lentils and I had to plod back and google out again which particular lentil was it and scrawl it on my hand for my shopping)

So keeping in tandem with the name of blog ‘Step by Step’ that’s exactly how I shall be presenting the recipe so that even a novice, who has never stepped into a kitchen before, can cook without having a coronary.

Recipe:

Preparation Time : 8 minutes
Cooking Time : 5 Minutes
Servings: 1

Ingredients

1 Teaspoon Salt
½ Cup Rice
½ Cup Yellow Lentils ( Dhuli Moong - धुली मूंग )

Visuals ( Click on any picture for enlarged view)

Yellow Lentils -Dhuli Moong - धुली मूंग




½ Cup of Rice & Yellow Lentils (Dhuli Moong - धुली मूंग)






Rice and lentils mixed






The Exact Measurement

Method

1) Mix the rice and yellow lentils together and wash them 2-3 times draining out the water.

2) Put the mixture of rice and lentils in a pressure cooker and add water till the mixture is 1/2 inch submerged. Add salt according to taste.

3) Cook till the pressure cooker lets out steam (whistles) thrice. (My pressure cooker takes 3 whistles. You will have to experiment with yours.)

4) Do not open the pressure cooker as yet. Wait for 5-7 minutes as rice and lentils are still being cooked in the steam.

5) Take out the steaming hot khichdi ( िखचड़ी ) and serve with curd.

6) BURP :-) ( This step is optional )

VOILA - Steaming Khichdi( िखचड़ी ) with Curd

Khichdi is usually served with curd, ghee घी - clarified butter, achaar अचार - pickle and papad पापड़ - poppadum. I have left them out on my doctors advise, I don’t see any reason why should you? There’s another type of khichdi which is made with a green daal :-) . Wait till I try it out on myself and let me get the terminology correct instead of gaping and asking my grocer for “green daal”. Till then adios, take care and be good.