I cooked up a big batch of this soup to feed a large & hungry group of sisters and artistes. It was very well received, not only for dinner, but scarfed down for breakfast the next day.

What’s the secret? Love. It’s the best spice.

As I mentioned in my Khichri post, I recently went to an Indian Ayurvediic Cooking Class at the Natural Gourmet Institute. I learned many things that night, but foremost amongst them is the concept that one must cook with love and intention. This concept has been knocking around on the edge of my brain for a while now, I just wasn’t sure how to put it. People claim that they can’t cook or are afraid of messing up and dear oh dear what should they do. My retort is: you just have to want to, don’t think too hard about it, and you’ll be fine. Nalini Mehta, my Ayurvedic instructor, used the wonderful phrase, “food knows when you’re nervous” and I agree. It tastes better if you just trust it’s going to taste better.

Give this Kadhi a try: gather your friends and sisters, want and intend to create something delicious, don’t worry if you don’t have some of the spices, (actually, don’t worry at all), get started, keep going, all of a sudden stop and enjoy your wonderful soup.

Serves: 4 as a main, 6 as a side
Time: 30 minutes

Kadhi, adapted from Nalini Mehta instructor at the Natural Gourmet Institute

Olive oil or ghee (clarified butter)
4 cloves
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp black mustard seeds
½ tsp fenugreek seeds, optional
dash asafetida, optional
½ tsp cayenne pepper
1 inch ginger, minced
2 green chilies, minced
4 cups yogurt
1 cup water
2 Tbsp chickpea flour (besan)
fresh cilantro, chopped, for a garnish

Heat a little oil or ghee in a pot and toss in the dried spices: cloves, cumin seeds, mustard seeds, and fenugreek seeds. Stir the seeds until they are a few shades darker and start to pop. Now add the powdered spices: asafetida and cayenne pepper. Stir for a second and immediately pour in the yogurt and water.

In a small bowl, whisk a little of the yogurt soup into the chickpea flour and blend until there are no more lumps. Add the flour mix to the soup pot and combine well.

Taste for salt and serve with a little cilantro sprinkled over. See? That wasn’t so hard.

Perfect with pita bread and a tomato, cucumber, and chick pea salad. Or, try it over Khichri like gravy over mashed potatoes.

I’ve been thinking a lot about balance lately and, as life likes to do, was given nearly 3 ½ hours worth of instruction on this topic at an Ayurvedic cooking class last week at the Natural Gourmet Institute for which I signed up months ago.

For the record, Ayurveda is an ancient form of Indian alternative medicine that, as far as this Midwestern American can tell, is about achieving a balance in all things – taste, temperature, emotion, physicality and spirituality.

The class, taught by the sunny Nalini Mehta, was a crash course for me in this Indian/ Ayurvedic idea of balance. Apologies to Nalini if I don’t get this quite right, but the gist of Ayurvedic cooking is to use a balance of the following six tastes in a meal: sweet, sour, bitter, pungent, astringent and salty. These, and again I was quite distracted by the yummy food being cooked to get this exactly right, correspond to the different natural elements of air, water, earth, fire, space. And depending on you and your loved ones’ natural body chemistry, your current emotional and physical states, the weather, time of day, etc., more or less of each of those tastes is desirable in order to achieve an overall balance.

This is, quite obviously, a little different than the sort of “food balance” I grew up with in Chicago: a slab protein, 2 sides of veggies and a big ole scoopful of carbs.

What I took home from this class, besides a rather un-Ayurvedic full belly, was a fuller sense of life and the comfort that a meal cooked with love and intention can provide.

Try this Khichri. Make it for the people you love. It’s a 4000 year old Indian comfort dish extraordinaire… it’s a protein-filled risotto with a kick, and is sure to balance out holiday stress.

Serves: 6
Time: 1 hour

Khichri – Indian Rice and Pea “Risotto”, adapted from Nalini Mehta

Olive oil or ghee (clarified butter)
2 dried red chilies, crumbled
1 tsp cumin seeds
8 cloves
8 black peppercorns
1 large yellow onion, cut into rings
1 large zucchini, cut into cubes *
½ bag of spinach, roughly chopped*
1 inch ginger, minced
1 tsp turmeric
¼ tsp asafetida, optional
½ tsp coriander powder
½ tsp ground cumin
1 tsp garam masala
1 ½ cup yellow or red split peas, toor dal, or moog dal
1 ¼ cups basmati rice
7 cups water
salt
Ghee, melted butter, or oil to garnish

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