Gujarati kitchari

I notice from my stats page that a lot of people seem to come here searching for a Gujarati kitchari recipe, I think because of this post about kosheri which references the differences between it and kitchari.  I feel a bit bad about these people who must be very disappointed to think that they've found a recipe for Gujarati kitchari but have actually found a post rambling about an Ottolenghi recipe and its similarity to a Gujarati recipe that I don't give!

So, I thought I'd post about Gujarati kitchari.  It's such a simple recipe that it barely qualifies as a recipe, really, but here we go.  The purpose of kitchari is as an alternative to rice or Indian bread products (chapati, thepla, puri, nan, paratha, etc) to have with shak (curry), it is a bland backdrop to the star dish.  I love it - it is easy, comforting, versatile (I will come on to what you can do with the leftovers).

Essentially, kitchari is split lentils (split mung beans are traditional but other split lentils work too),  rice that soaks up a lot of water (pudding or risotto/paella rice for preference but ordinary basmati rice is ok in a pinch but isn't as satisfyingly stodgy), ghee/butter (or oil if you really don't have ghee/butter or are vegan), cooked up together.  You can make it in a pressure cooker if you're in a hurry (but remember that the point is for it to be cooked well and end up slightly mushy, so set it for longer than you would usually for lentils or rice; you can use a slow cooker if you want to make it overnight; you can do it on the hob (in about 30-40 mins).  I don't have a pressure cooker so I usually make it in the slow cooker or, sometimes, on the hob.

Photo from http://www.learningherbs.com/

You want equal quantities split lentils and rice (I do this by just alternating handfuls of each, roughly you can expect that each person will eat two handfuls worth if kitchari is your only starch or one handful worth if you're also doing bread of some kind) and about a tablespoon's worth of ghee/butter per handful, plus about half a teaspoon's worth of salt per handful.  Then, using your chosen method - hob, pressure cooker, slow cooker - you want to cook it until it's really very cooked and the lentils and the rice are kind of one amorphous blob.  The consistency is that of porridge, really.  I'll put up a photo of my own next time I make it but in the meantime the photo to the right indicates the consistency that you're looking for.

It's good to make shak with it that's more on the liquidy side so that the juices run into the kitchari and make it nice and tasty.  In particular, tomato shak is lovely with this.  It's made in the same way as normal shak but with a few changes:  it needs a bit of sugar (about a teaspoon for every eight small tomatoes), it needs more garlic than normal (I'd add six cloves to shak for 3-4 people), a bit of lemon juice is good in it, as is coriander, and sev sprinkled on top is fab.

I never worry if I've made extra kitchari because it's pretty useful in the leftover department.  You can eat it on its own with natural yoghurt for breakfast - when it plays the role of porridge, you can curry it (following the instructions for shak, just with kitchari instead of vegetables), you can make a great Indian left over dish called muthia with it (which I'll post about properly another time..)

Kosheri and spicy tomato sauce - Ottolenghi recipe

One of my favourite Gujarati dishes is "kitchari" - split mung beans (other split lentils work too) and pudding rice cooked up together with a dollop of ghee (or butter) and a bit of salt.  My nanima (maternal grandmother) particularly likes it with tomato curry (garlicky, lemony, slightly sweet, lovely - next time I make it, I will attempt to write it up as a recipe, but it's something I very much do by eye) and sev (crispy gram flour vermicelli noodles).

Mmm, tomatoes

When my lovely husband gave me Ottlenghi:  the cookbook, one of the recipes that caught my eye was the one for kosheri and spicy tomato sauce as it sounded pretty similar.  So, the other day, that's what I cooked.  The full recipe can be found in various places online, e.g. here but I don't want to plagiarise it by writing it all out.

Vermicelli noodles looking funny

It was a strange experience, eating it, because it is indeed very similar to kichari and tomato curry, but subtly different.  The Ottlenghil tomato sauce was much tangier due, I think, to the cider vinegar - to be honest, I think I slightly prefer the sweeter, more lemony, Gujarati version of this but it was nice as a change.  The kosheri was a much more interesting texture than kitchari, I particularly liked the addition of fried onions, but, really, I think the two dishes mostly just serve different roles:  kitchari is a bland, comfort-type food, I sometimes eat left over kitchari for breakfast because it is a bit like porridge; kosheri is more interesting, you could eat it on its own for lunch.

Mmmm, tomatoes..

Even the worm in the rock dreams of fresh herbs!

Overall verdict:  how far wrong can you go with tomatoes, lentils, butter-fried vermicelli noodles, and fresh herbs?

Kosheri

On the recipe itself..  I love Ottolenghi and, as usual, the recipe was incredibly precise - I always want to ask him, "does it really matter if I fry this for 7 minutes instead of 6?  REALLY?" and, as usual, if you follow it, you will end up with delicious food (which isn't always the case with cookbooks).

But, this time, I thought the ordering of the recipe was peculiar.  It suggests you make things in a sequence that would make the whole process take well over an hour when, if you read the recipe through completely, you can reorder it to make it much faster.  In particular, I think it's bizarre that you get to the end of cooking the tomato sauce, then the kosheri and - only then - does he tell you to fry a couple of onions for 20 minutes.  I didn't actually mind that much because I did read the whole recipe through and reorder it but, if I were hungry and got to the onion instruction, I'd have been Quite Annoyed.