Kadhi chawal, one of the most popular and delicious Punjabi dish. This popular dish is the favorite one of many people in Northern India. Nowadays it is available almost every city across the country. So if you like kadhi chawal and live in an Indian city then you can easily have this in a local restaurant. But nothing can beat the experience of having homemade kadhi chawal with family members.
Kadhi pakoda with chawal (rice) & old memories
Though I am not from North India but I started to like it very much when I was staying in Delhi. I saw people in dhaba preparing kadhi, rajma, dal makhani and many other North Indian foods near my rented residence. I often did lunch with kadhi chawaal with salad. It was absolutely a new style of food to me. I never thought of the combination of gram flour & curd for making a delicious food. But when first time ate this food, I found it okay. I mean nothing special but gradually I started loving this kadhi pakoda & plain rice. Those are really old good memories.
So I tried this dish several times at my home too. After two or three times, I made it perfect and then I started making this dish very often too. Though I like dal tadka, dal makhani more than this. But still, for having with plain rice (or matar rice), this is best. What do you say?
Though its a traditional recipe but you can still find little variation in its taste from a restaurant to another restaurant due to slightly different processes or/and practices. When you do practice a dish for many times then you are actually doing masters in that dish. You will understand how much quantity of an ingredient is required and how much time you will cook to make that perfect. So if you are newbie cook then don’t disappoint with your first-time performance, try it again and learn from your mistakes.
Pakodas in kadhi
Pakoras in kadhi make this dish more delicious. Onions & besan (gram flour) made pakodas are added in kadhi. Though you can have this without onion pakora also. Kadhi pakoda is not only tasty and delicious but also it has good nutrition value. This is so yummy and easy to cook food.
Most interesting thing is that, if you will make this at home then you can avoid any ingredient what you do not like. Suppose you do not like asafoetida or hing then you simply avoid (if possible) that too and have something that you like.
In case, if you are thinking that it is just a delicious food but it does not have any health benefits then I will say you are absolutely wrong. This is actually a super food with a lot of health benefits. It comes with many minerals & vitamins. Not only that, it also has protein, calcium & phosphorous. If you are still not believing this then you can read this article. I recently landed on this page and found that article helpful in this topic. So I decided to share this with my readers.
Main ingredients of kadhi chawal are gram flour (besan) and yogurt/curd (dahi). So you will find the sour taste and thick gravy due to besan. A lot of spices are used in kadhi what brings good mouth-watering aroma. Pakoras are basically onion & besan made pakodas dipped in kadhi.
Kadhi pakoda recipe / kadhi chawal
- For kadhi preparation :
- Curd / dahi - 1.5 cups
- Gram flour - ½ cups
- Water - 1.5 cup
- Chopped onion - ½ cup
- Mustard seeds / sarso / rai seeds - 2 tsp
- Turmeric powder - 1 tsp
- Red chillies / lal mirch - 3-4 pieces
- Green chilies (chopped) - 1 tsp
- Asafoetida / hing - 1 pinch
- Salt - as needed
- Oil - 1 tbsp
- Coriander leaves - to garnish
- For pakoda preparation :
- Chopped onion - 1 cup
- Gram flour/besan - ½ cup
- Grated ginger / adrak - 2 tsp
- Baking powder - 1 pinch
- Turmeric powder - ½ tsp
- Chopped green chillies / hara mirch - 2 tsp
- Chopped coriander leaves - ¼ cup
- Salt - as needed
- Water - as needed
- Oil - 1 tbsp
- Pakoda : Add all ingredients for pakodas and make perfectly thick mixture (not so thick and not so liquid)
- Heat oil in a pan and add small parts of mixture according to pakoda's size and fry them in batches
- Take all pakodas in a bowl
- Kadhi : Mix curd (dahi) & gram flour (besan) and then add water and make smooth mixture
- Heat oil in kadai / wide cooking pot and add red chillies, chopped onion, fry till color turns light brown, add salt too
- Now add mustard seeds, turmeric powder, hing and fry for 30 seconds and add green chillies too
- Then add curd & gram flour mixture and boil for 12 - 15 minutes
- Now add pakodas in that kadhi and switch off burner
- Garnish with chopped coriander leaves and serve hot/warm
Additional tips – Kadhi pakoda (Kadhi chawal recipe)
Always be careful when you make kadhi mixture, add water as needed otherwise people add extra water then adjust with adding extra besan or gram flour that effects overall taste of kadhi
Do not over boil kadhi and dry up kadhi or do not make it very thick. Try to make it balanced and get delicious kadhi pakoda as a result and enjoy your kadhi chawal (kadhi with plain rice). You can try this with matar rice or jeera rice also.
But in case, you are not interest to prepare kadhi chawal at home and you think you can not manage it yourself then you can try this at local restaurant. For most authentic taste you should try kadhi pakoda with rice at a place in Northern India. I knew some road side dhaba in Delhi where you will definitely get most traditional & super delicious kadhi chawal in Delhi. But those are mostly visited by locals and not in tourists spots. So here I am sharing a article written what i have accidentally found recently. In that article writer mentioned a few excellent restaurants in popular places in Delhi. So you can try kadhi chawal at those places whenever next time you will visit Delhi.
Try some more delicious food – gulab jamun, buttery potato, vegetable momos, pav bhaji, idli and much more.
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