Gujarati Kadhi

Ingredients

1 cup dahi (plain yogurt)

3 tbsp besan (gram flour)

3-4 green chilis

1/2 tsp crushed ginger curry leaves salt (to taste)

Instructions

1 tbsp ghee

1/2-1 tsp jeera seeds

1 stick cinnamon

1-2 cloves coriander leaves

In a steel vessel, mix the yogurt and besan until it becomes a thick paste and no lumps remain. Add 2.5 cups of water and mix. Add green chilis, ginger paste, curry leaves, and salt. Bring to boil for 5 minutes while stirring continuously. Reduce flame and simmer for about 15-20 minutes while stirring occasionally. If too thick, add another 1/2 cup of water.

Heat the ghee in a different vessel. Add the jeera, cinnamon, and cloves until they crackle.

Add tempering into the kadhi and let it boil for 2 minutes.

Garnish with coriander leaves.

Serve hot with rotis or rice.

The first time I went to a traditional Gujarati restaurant, I was confused. Everything on the thali plate – from the rotis to the kadhi – was identifiable as something my mom makes at home, but was just as an unbearably sweeter version of what I was used to. Here, at this restaurant, I learned that traditional Gujarati food is sweet due to small amounts of sugar that are added to every dish. Kadhi, the way my dadi (dad's mom) makes it, has about 1 tsp of sugar in it. However, my nani (mom's mom) makes kadhi with less than 1/2 tsp of sugar, and my mom omits sugar entirely to give the kadhi a tangier and spicier flavor.

My mom grew up having kadhi with hot rotis and rice every Sunday.

When I was growing up, there was a period of time when our curry patta plant lived in my neighbor's house (if you ask my mom, it was only for a few weeks but I remember making this walk for months), so whenever I wanted to have kadhi – or when we had a lot of dahi we had to use up before it spoiled – I would cross the street to get some curry leaves so my mom could make kadhi.

When I asked my mom for this recipe, she gave it to me without any measurements, saying to use whatever "feels and looks right" (ex. however much water it takes to make the dahi-besan mix the correct thin consistency). Having never made this recipe without my mom standing behind me, I asked how I'd know what the correct consistency was. My mom responded by searching up a random recipe online and reading off the measurements from that recipe because "it's probably the same " (even though the recipe was for traditional Gujarati kadhi).

However you choose to make this recipe (sweet, spicy, or somewhere in between), I hope you enjoy!