When it comes to food habits, I can hardly claim to be a Bengali. The idea of eating fish and meat hardly appeals to me. I eat only one variety of fish, rohu , and among meat only mutton — that too after I’ve fortified myself with a couple of drinks so that I am less alive to the fact that I am eating flesh.
But when it comes to the love for khichdi — the rice-and-lentils dish — I am very Bengali. Every Bengali necessarily grows up with the smell of khichdi — they call it khichuri — because it is served during every festival that Bengalis celebrate: Durga Puja, Kali Puja, Saraswati Puja, Lakshmi Puja, to name a few.
On the face of it, it is the humblest of Indian dishes — just rice and moong dal boiled together along with some vegetables — but it becomes a delicacy the moment it is served during such festivals, when hundreds of people simultaneously — and joyously — plunge their fingers into piping hot khichdi scooped out from steel buckets onto their plates.
Coming to the point: I make decent khichdi . I say this because my close friends tell me so, and I believe them because all through the years, I have never seen them waste even a spoonful of what I served them. Experience has taught me that there is no right or wrong way of making khichdi : one should make it with love, and one should eat it with love.
Here’s how I make mine.
Pressure-cook one cup of rice and one cup of moong dal in six to eight cups of water (depending on how thick you want your khichdi to be) along with:
Roasted cumin seeds (one spoonful)
A cup of vegetables (cauliflower florets; sliced radish and carrot; a potato cut into two, green peas);
Two whole green chillies;
Two bay leaves;
Salt to taste;
Turmeric powder;
A pinch of asafoetida.
Cook on low flame and turn off the oven after you hear the first whistle.
Open the cooker after 20 minutes. Your khichdi is ready.
Add a dollop of ghee or butter if you like.
