BM# 101: Week 2, Day 1
Theme : Cooking with Chickpea flour

Back home, it’s a common practice to boil milk every morning before consuming and at the end of the day, the leftover milk is converted to yogurt. So with freshly prepared yogurt almost every single day, there is frequent appearance of yogurt based recipes at our dining table. In our house, Mor kuzhambu was our comfort food. That’s yogurt with ground coconut paste. Amma used to make it in an earthen pot and that used to make it even more delicious.

In Northern parts of India, instead of coconut, besan or chickpea flour is used to make Kadhi. This yogurt based curry can be thin or thick, depending on the area it’s from. Gujarati Kadhi is more watery than the Punjabi Kadhi. Just like its Southern counterpart, this gravy can be prepared with or without vegetables. Seasonal greens are sometimes added and what we have here is Methi (fenugreek leaves) Kadhi. Here I have served it with mixed vegetable khichdi.

Read on for the recipe.

Serves : 6-8

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup chickpea flour/besan
• 2 cups yogurt
• 1″ ginger piece
• 3 green chilies
• 2 cups Methi leaves, washed and cleaned
• 5-6 cups water
• 1 teaspoon chili powder
• Salt as needed

For tadka:

• 1 tablespoon ghee
• a pinch of Asafetida
• 1 teaspoon jeera
• 1 teaspoon mustard seeds
• 2 dried red chilies

Method:

1. Using a mortar and pestle, crush the ginger and green chilies together. Else chop it finely.
2. In a medium bowl, add the besan and yogurt. Using a whisk, mix well until it’s lump free.
3. Heat ghee in a big heavy bottom pan. Add all the items under tadka.
4. Once the mustard seeds splutter, add the crushed ginger and green chilies. Sauté until its fragrant. Add the methi leaves. Sauté for a couple of minutes until it’s wilted a bit.
5. Add the besan yogurt slurry. Mix well and add 5 cups of water. Add chili powder and keep mixing often to avoid any flour lump from forming. Add salt as needed ( Kadhi needs a fair amount of salt).
6. Reduce heat to low and let it cook for about half an hour. The more it cooks, the tastier it gets. You might have to add more water (and salt too) if it gets too thick. Keep stirring in between.
7. At the end of half an hour, taste test and take of the heat. Serve with plain rice or chapati.

Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the recipe from other Blogging Marathoners.