Sabhudana Khichdi

Recipe Courtesy: My dearest cousin Pallavi

Continuing with the guest posts for Valli's Kid's Delight: 5 Ingredient event being here right here on my blog. Today I have my dear cousin Pallavi's Sabhudana Khichdi. Pallavi lives in Delaware and has 2 beautiful daughters. She is a great cook and makes amazing Andhra dishes. She is a busy working mom, so big thanks to her for taking time and sending 2 delicious dishes for the Kid's delight event. She even took awesome step-by-step pictures.

I'm going to turn it over to Pallavi now:

I have been waiting all these days for my elder kid to ask me make a specific dish of her choice. Before hitting the bed her wish was for Sabudana kichidi for next day’s lunch pack. Immediately Pavani’s (Proud to say my cousin) Kids Delight Even flashed in my mind. Sabudana Kichidi is not much famous in Andhra (my native place). I had it the very first time and often during my stay in Mumbai. Probably I like it as much as my kid does. Later I learnt it from my Mother-in-law, a magical chef. People often say she cooks with lot of passion and love. I learnt basics in cooking only after marriage that too inspired from my Mother-in-law’s cooking. 

Coming to Sabudana Kichidi recipe, if you know the basic rule of how to soak Sabudana overnight (8 hrs) then you are half the way through recipe. When you soak Sabudana in water, the level of water must be strictly 3/4th inch above sabudana level. Water level below or above this range would make sabudana either too hard or too watery in texture. After overnight soak, Sabudana looks like below..

For this recipe, I used around below 5 ingredients:

Sabudana (soaked overnight as above) - 3cups 

Peanuts - 1 cup, roasted & gently powdered (generally I prefer Peeled unless it’s used as a whole like in Pulihora). If you have powdered it 80-90% that’s enough. 

Potato - 1 medium, chopped

Onion - 1 medium, chopped

Lemon - for seasoning

Oil - 1tbsp

Ghee/Unsalted sweet butter - 1tsp

Jeera/Mustard/Turmeric/Hing – for tempering 

Salt - to taste

Red Chili powder – to your kids spice level

Method:

• In a thick pan, pour the oil. When hot enough then make Tadka using Jeera/Mustard/Turmeric. When mustard splutters add Hing. 
• Then mix onion and potato. Fry until potato turns soft. 
• Then mix sabudana followed by Peanut powder. Mix all the ingredients gently. Add salt and Chili powder. Mix gently again. Turn the stove to low heat for 15-20 mins. Every 4-5 mins mix the ingredients gently upside down so it’s well cooked on all the sides. It is extremely important to keep stove on lower flame especially if you are not mixing it often. Otherwise Sabudana forms a hard layer on the bottom (just like Benzene molecule :-) and is not edible. When the texture is not sticky or starchy anymore then it means it has cooked enough. 
• Switch off the flame and add lemon juice for taste.

Here's the pictorial: