Moong Daal Khichdi: comfort for the mind, body and soul! 🙂
Until a few years ago, I strongly believed that khichdi is the food for the sick and unless I’m in bed I would rather have daal-chawal separately. But it became much more than food for the sick for me during my LSE college days. For one, there was little time (and also means) to cook something elaborate after classes and studies and all the fun and two, more often than not the weather was so cold that I was very happy tucked in my bed with one bowl of this khichdi.
On Saturday we had a big barbecue party at home. Sunday was the after-party cleaning and catching on sleep and recovering day. We had slept at 5am so breakfast was out of question and lunch was largely from leftovers. By the time we finished cleaning up it was quite late and simple, hot rice and lentil casserole was what the body needed. Last night I made a very simple khichdi with only tomatoes but usually I add onions, potatoes, carrots and capsicum to notch up the taste and nutrition.
Moong Daal Khichdi
By Ashima Goyal Siraj
Preparation time: |Cooking time: |Serves: 2
½ cup rice
½ cup moong daal (yellow or red lentil)
2 tomatoes, chopped
1 green chilli, chopped
1 tbsp ghee or clarified butter
½ tsp cumin seeds
A pinch of asafoetida
½ tsp turmeric powder
2 tsps coriander powder
Salt and red chilli powder to taste
1 tbsp lemon juice
A few sprigs of fresh coriander, chopped (for garnish)
- Mix together rice and daal in a bowl. Wash with 2-3 changes of water and soak in 3 cups of water.
- Put the pressure cooker on medium heat. Add ghee.
- Once the ghee is hot, add cumin seeds and asafoetida.
- Once the seeds start to sputter add green chillies. Sauté for a minute. If you are adding more veggies like potatoes, onions or carrots add them with chillies and cook for about 2 minutes before adding tomatoes.
- Add chopped tomatoes. Sauté for a minute and then add all the spices.
- Drain the soaked rice and daal. Keep the water aside. Add the drained rice and daal to the cooker. Mix well and then add the water in which they were soaked.
- Give the entire mixture a nice stir and close the pressure cooker. Cook for 3 whistles. Remove from heat and open the pressure cooker only after all the steam has escaped on its own.
- Add lemon juice. Depending on the consistency that you want, you may add more water as well.
- Remove in bowls; garnish with some chopped coriander and serve hot with crispy papad and some pickle.
I am new to cooking and have two kids. This recipe is my favourite and most successful. Thanks a ton for sharing.
Thanks, Ashok! I am glad this was helpful!