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Lunch time is all about eating something saucy and curried. Indian cuisine in particular, has a lot of gravy-based dishes being prepared during lunch hours. This is because it is a midday meal and people are usually hungry so the food needs to be such that it replenishes their energy. In different cultures, there are a variety of dishes which are staple to the region. So for instance, in Bihar, dal and chawal is a constant during the day meals. It is sometimes paired with a dry subzi and sometimes eaten as is. Kadhi is another gravy dish that is popularly eaten in many parts of northern India.
Did you know that you start listing the kinds of kadhis that are eaten in the Indian sub-continent, you could almost draw up a map of the Kadhis of India? Right from Punjabis to Rajasthanis, Gujaratis and Sindhis, the yoghurt- based concoction is made in each of these cultures. Not just that, it is the style of making the kadhi, the ingredients used and a plethora of other things that help us distinguish between the varied kinds. Being from a Punjabi family, my idea of kadhi usually involved deep-fried onion fritters dunked in a pool of curd-based curry.
The Rajasthani curry usually has balls of chickpea flour inside the kadhi but it isn’t stuffed with onions. The flavour of the Sindhi kadhi would leave you amazed as it is chickpea based but is filled with all kinds of vegetables like beans, lady finger or okra and tomatoes. The tomatoes are solely responsible for lending the dish a tangy taste. Gujarati kadhi is thinnest form of kadhi you’ll find. The watery-consistency of the kadhi is what makes it so different from others. Made with buttermilk and seasoned with herbs, it has a light, soupy texture.
However, it was at a festive lunch that I made acquaintance with something called aloo ki kadhi. Never had I heard or tasted such a kadhi variety before. For the unversed, aloo ki kadhi is an interesting version of regular kadhi that is quite common in the hilly terrains of Himachal Pradesh. You’d find cubes of potatoes dunked into a kadhi made from yoghurt. This kadhi is a favourite lunch recipe, usually eaten with rice.
To prepare aloo ki kadhi for lunch, you need to boil and peel the potatoes first. Next up, you should start preparing the kadhi base by whisking together some besan or chickpea flour and curd in water. Set this aside while you toss some mustard seeds in ghee for a few seconds. Spices like cumin, bay leaves, curry leaves and asafeotida are added to this and it is sautéed. The boiled potatoes are diced into small cubes and dunked into this pan along with red chilli powder, cumin seeds and some coriander powder.
All this is mixed together and cooked on a sim for a while. Once the potatoes are properly coated in kadhi, you can take it out of the pan and serve hot with some steamed rice.
Here’s a detailed recipe of this spicy potato kadhi we’ve been talking about.
