Name: Bengali Bhoger Khichuri
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 30 min
Total time: 60 min
Yield: 2 servings
Cuisine: Indian
Ingredients: ½ cup Gobindobhog Rice, washed and drained; ½ cup Split Yellow Mung Beans, dry roasted, then washed; 1 Potato, peeled and halved; ½ cup Cauliflower, cut into large florets; ¼ cup Green Peas; 1 tbsp Mustard Oil, for frying vegetables; 1½ tbsp Ghee, for khichuri; ½ tsp Cumin Seeds; 1 Indian Bay Leaf; 1 Dried Red Chili Peppers; ¾ inch Ginger, grated; ½ tsp Ground Turmeric; ½ tsp Ground Cumin; ½ tbsp Sugar; ¾ tsp Salt, to taste; 2½ cup Water, hot

1 hrtotal

45 min hands-on15 min hands-off

Prep 15 min · Cook 30 min

Serves: 2
Difficulty: Medium
Spice: Mild

Add to your week

Method

Heat the raw mustard oil in a pan until it just smokes, which takes off its harsh edge. Add the potato halves and the large cauliflower florets with a little turmeric and salt. Shallow-fry them until they are golden and blistered. Lift them out and set aside.
Heat a large, heavy pot and add the ghee. Add the cumin seeds, bay leaves and dry red chillies. Let them splutter to release their aroma.
Add the grated ginger, turmeric and cumin powder. Add a splash of water straight away to stop the spices catching and burning. Fry the resulting paste for 1 minute.
1 min
Add the dry gobindobhog rice and the pre-roasted, washed mung dal to the pan. Fold them through very gently, toasting them slowly in the spiced ghee for 2 minutes.
2 min
Pour in the measured boiling water. Add the salt and bring it to a rolling boil. Turn the heat well down, cover the pot partially, and let it cook for 10 minutes.
10 min
Uncover. Add the fried potatoes and cauliflower, along with the green peas, pushing them down into the mixture. Stir carefully from the bottom up so the vegetables do not break.
Cover the pot fully again. Cook over low heat for a final 10-12 minutes. The rice and lentils should break down into a thick, porridge-like khichuri, without going watery or shapeless. In the last few seconds of cooking, stir in the sugar and a generous amount of raw ghee. Turn off the heat.
10–12 min

How to tell it's done

Brace for an obscenely rich, velvet-smooth, hyper-viscous, golden-yellow emulsion where profoundly sweet, fragrant short-grain starches completely homogenize with ultra-creamy dissolved lentils, punctuated by massive, yielding, deeply seared vegetable payloads.

Getting it right

Tip

Bhoger khichuri is meant to be a little sweet, so don't leave the sugar out. Dry-roasting the moong dal matters just as much: that is where the temple-kitchen smell comes from.

What to serve it with

A rich, festive dish. Serve it piping hot with oil-glistening beguni (batter-fried aubergine slices), crisp potato chips, and a sweet, sticky tomato chutney.

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Ingredients