kadhi chawal

Kadhi chawal (yogurt-based curry with fried dumplings, served over rice) is one of my favorite dishes. It's warming and pure comfort food for me. Here's my take:

Ingredients
Yogurt curry

• 1-1.5 cups yogurt 
• 2-3 cups water
• 1/4th cup chickpea flour/gram flour (besan)
• 1 tsp turmeric powder (haldi)
• Salt to taste
• 1 tbsp oil

Seasoning spices (tadka)

• 1 tsp mustard (sarson) seeds
• 1 tsp fenugreek (methi) seeds
• 2 dried red chillies, broken in half
• 4 peppercorns (or pepper powder)
• 1/2 medium sized onion, diced
• 1/4" piece of ginger, grated

Dumplings

• 1/4 cup gram flour
• 1/4 medium onion, diced
• Water, as needed
• 1/2 tsp carrom seeds (ajwain)
• 1/2 tsp cumin seeds (jeera)
• Salt
• Oil for frying

Steps

1. Let's start with the dumplings. Mix all the dumpling ingredients (except oil) and drop them in hot oil and fry until lightly golden brown. Pull them out on paper towels to blot out excess oil.
2. In a large bowl, whisk the turmeric powder, gram flour, and yogurt until complete smooth.
3. Add the water and salt, and mix well.
4. In a large cooking vessel (eg. dutch oven or a large saucepan), heat up the oil and add the mustard seeds, fenugreek seeds, dried red chillies, and the peppercorns.
5. After these start to splutter, throw in the grated ginger and diced onion, and mix until the onions just lightly start to turn brown.
6. Whisk the yogurt mixture on more time to mix back in any gram flour that might have settled on the bottom of the bowl while the mixture sat. Pour carefully into the oil with the spices.
7. Continue cooking this for 10-15 minutes while stirring constantly to avoid sticking or burning of the mixture to the bottom of the pan.
8. When it starts to thicken, taste and check the spice level. This is a good time to add extra pepper powder or salt if needed.
9. When ready to serve, throw in the dumplings in warm kadhi, and ladle over a hot bed of rice!

Note: The hardest part here is really the frying. I'm no expert at frying, but I absolutely love the curry. It's simple to make and tastes soo good! If you're averse to frying, like me, then feel free to buy frozen pakodas from an Indian grocery store and oven-bake them really well before throwing them into your curry! If the gravy is good, it'll all work out :)