Name: Cracked-Wheat Porridge with Beef, Legumes, and Rice (Khichda)
Yield: Serves 8
Cuisine: India
Ingredients: ½ cup Ginger Chile Paste; 1¼ pounds cut-up beef (1-inch cubes) for stew (I use boneless chuck short ribs); ¼ cup Ghee or butter (preferably unsalted); 6 large cloves garlic, finely chopped; ¼ cup finely chopped fresh cilantro leaves and tender stems for garnishing; 2 teaspoons coarse kosher or sea salt; 1 tablespoon cumin seeds; ¼ cup yellow split peas (chana dal), picked over for stones; ¼ cup oily or unoily skinned split yellow pigeon peas (toovar dal), picked over for stones; 2 tablespoons Toasted Cumin-Coriander Blend; 2 teaspoons black cumin seeds; 1 cup cracked wheat; ½ cup long-grain white rice

Preparation info

Serves
8

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

660 Curries

By Raghavan Iyer

Published 2008

About

A dish found in all the Muslim communities in India is khichdas. This particular version is favored by the Bohri Muslims, who converted from their Gujarati Brahmin backgrounds to Islam during the 11th and 12th centuries. This recipe comes to me via Ranee Munaim and Zohair Motiwalla (Motiwalla means “pearl merchant”—in Bohri households, ancestral last names often reflect their trade). Ranee is an occupational therapist, Zohair an information systems specialist, and their passio