Khichdi & Rotla

When we have had several weekends of celebrations and we have eaten a lot of rich calorie laden spicy foods Manu and I crave a quite night in with a simple meal of Khichdi, Kadhi, rotla.

Khichdi is basically a mixture of rice and moong dal, boiled until very soft, almost a thick porridge like consistency. Khadhi is stirred yoghurt, brought to a boil with the addition of salt, chillies, ginger, turmeric, sugar and tempered with a bit of oil/ghee, curry leaves, mustard seeds, fenugreek etc. Served during cold evenings this warm fragrant soup if you can call it that is very relaxing. The beauty of the kadhi is that it can be served with rice, khichdi, as part of a celebratory meal especially with peas pullao and shrikhand or puran puri.

Then there are rotla – yummmmmmmyyy! A bread made from Millet flour. This particular variety is not too heavy on the stomach and can be eaten warm or cold (room temperature). Sometimes, if you have rotlo left over, this can be shredded into bite size pieces and temper it with the usual spices and stirred yoghurt or just have it with chaash. We love our rotla and its combination of the above khichdi almost always reminds us of Virpur where this meal is served every single day. Sometimes I make a shak to accompany the khichdi kadhi rotla, sometimes I make ringda no orro a spiced baked eggplant dish however, this is not always the case.

The above served with just slices of onion and tomato is a fabulous meal that will warm up even a cold lonesome soul.

I am sharing my recipe for the above foods with you folks and I hope that you can experience the simplicity of this hearty meal.

2cups millet flour
3/4 cup water

Knead the dough by adding little water at a time,and make a soft dough.Take small portion of a dough and make a small ball, flatten the daugh using your palms.Dust the patlo ( board) with dry flour and gently roll with rolling pin and form round circle.Lift the rotlo gently ,place on preheated flat pan.Cook on medium heat for about 30 seconds and flip rotlo with a spatula ,let it cook for about a minute or until cooked. flip again and getly press with hand towel, rotlo will puffed up. Take it out and set on the plate and spread the ghee evenly.

PS this makes 4 Rotla

KHICHDI

3/4 cup rice

1/2 cup moong daal ( with skin)

2 1/2 cups water

1 3/4 tea spoons salt

1/2 tea spoon turmeric powder

1 table spoon ghee.

Wash rice and dal then put these into a pressure cooker, measure the water and pour it onto the rice n dal. Now add salt turmeric and ghee. Close the lid of the pressure cooker and cook kichdi on high heat to three whistles.