Quick Cook Khichdi – Heart Warming Comfort Foods.

Steaming hot Khichdi with Channa.

Weekends are always a time to sit back and laze, read  your favourite books, watch your favourite tv shows, listen to the music you`ve always wanted to, eat simple delicious home cooked food and enjoy a lazy siesta…I never prefer to spend a lot of time in the kitchen over the weekends as this would essentially take time away from my family. Weekends are, therefore Khichdi times…I would prepare easy khichdi and some subzi on the side to go with it. As one item is essentially easy and the process of cooking is done inside my pressure cooker, the subzi gets done along with the khichdi.

Sometimes, when its cold, and I want to have comfort food, Khichdi it is. My daughter loves it, as she helps me in the preparation. I dollop an extra spoon of ghee on her serving, so she is thrilled. It was this one time when she was three, and we had been to the Saravana Bhavan Gujarati Restaurant in T.Nagar. Chennai. They serve this amazing simple thali, and the main course would be some pulav and this khichdi. He would bring it steaming hot, in one of those heavy silver pots, and serve huge ladlefulls on our plate and top it generously with ghee. The taste is simply heavenly and combined with the fact that its piping hot – It was sweet heaven. Since then, this dish has been a regular in my weekend cooking.

Your kids and family would definitely love this mushy khichdi so, go ahead and try it out this weekend

INGREDIENTS:

1 cup raw rice.

1/2 cup toor dhal.

1/2 cup moong dhal.

Seasoning:

2-3 pods of garlic.

1 inch piece of ginger

5-6 green chillis

Curry Leaves.

2 spoons of jeera

3-4 spoons of ghee.

PREPARATION:

• In a pressure cooker, add 1 cup of water and switch on the flame. Measure out the rice and the dhals together in a container. Wash the rice and dhals and add water in the ratio: 1 : 3 1/2. This means for the 2 cups ( 1 cup rice + One cup Dhals) we need to totally add about 7 cups of water. Add adequate salt.
• Allow 3-4 whistles in the cooker and switch off.
• Take the mortar and pestle and crush the ginger, garlic and chillis together to form a coarse mix. We don`t grind it in the mixer, as this would overpower the taste of the khichdi.
• In the meantime, take a seasoning kadai and add 3 spoons of ghee. When the ghee begins to get hot, add jeera, the garlic-ginger-chillies mix, and the curry leaves.

Seasonings in ghee.

• Allow a few seconds for the seasonings to get fried in the ghee and then pop it over the cooked khichdi. Mix well. I
• If you feel that the consistency is not “mushy” , you could add 1/2 cup of milk.
• Serve Hot with a spoon of ghee and a side of Channa and Mango Thokku.

Sending steaming hot bowls of Khichdi and Pickle to Recipes for the rest of Us – Dinner, the brainchild of Ramki of One Page Cookbooks , and hosted by Siri of Siri`s Corner.

Khichdi, Channa and Mango Thokku.