Sabudana Khichdi!

My aunt lives in Pune which a city in Maharashtra, India. She used to make this for us every time we visited her or when she visited us. It's a Maharashtrian dish that is usually made during fasts as it is quite filling and the carbs can keep you going for a long while after you're done eating. I usually make this when I know we are going to get some physical activity and it's become our go-to breakfast on days that my husband and I go for a hike.

The recipe requires a little bit of prep work but once you have that out of the way you can get this ready in about 10-15 minutes. If you do the prep work the night before you want to eat this, you can have it ready in under 15 minutes!

It is a little hard to get the right texture with this khichdi. Water can totally ruin it and you'll end up with a flop that my dad likes to call "soggy dana". Follow my recipe and you should have absolutely no problem getting this right.

Here's a terrible pic of the final product before we move on to the actual recipe! I need to take better pics...Oh well. At least you know I haven't used photoshop to make it look better than it really is :)

Ingredients:

1 cup unsoaked sabudana pearls (tapioca or sago pearls)

1/2 to 3/4 cup of roasted peanuts (crushed or powdered)

6-8 green chillies

2-3 small potatoes or 1 large potato

2 teaspoons jeera

Handful of chopped cilantro

Salt

Prep work!

1. Soak the sabudana overnight.  Add just enough water to cover the top and soak it overnight or at least 4-5 hours. If the sabudana is particularly powdery, I sometimes rinse it a couple of times before I soak.

2. Chop or powder the peanuts. I like to use a mix of powdered and chopped up peanuts so you get a few peanut pieces in every bite!

3. Chop and boil the potatoes in a microwave so you don't have to spend time frying them in step 2.

Method:

1. Mix the crushed peanuts and sabudana (post soaking).

2. Heat oil and fry the jeera until it splutters. Add the boiled potato and green chillies. Fry until the potatoes are brown. If you boiled these in the microwave, then make sure the water has evaporated.

3. Add the sabudana and peanuts mixture with salt and just let it cook while stirring occasionally so it doesn't burn. The sabudana will turn from opaque white to this slightly translucent shade. That's when you know it's done. It usually takes about 5-7 minutes for this step. 

4. Add chopped cilantro and dig in!

We usually serve it with some lemon wedges and cold yogurt. The yogurt helps mellow out the spice of the green chillies and the whole hot and cold combination is just tooo yummy to handle!