From khichdi to pongal: The one-pot mishmash that binds India

By Anoothi Vishal

Whether you breakfast on ven pongal tomorrow or donate pots of black urad and rice cooked with amla, the fact that the year’s first festival involves the ritualistic taste of the mishmash is significant. The celebration of Makar Sankranti with khichdi, the one-pot dish, is a symbolic celebration of life and regeneration — with newly harvested rice and grain. It also affirms the importance of what is perhaps India’s most inventive dish.

Think khichdi, and a simple dish of rice and dal comes to mind. It is anything but — there are millet khichdis; those cooked with safflower seeds and corn; and the meat khichdis that defy the impression that this is essentially a vegetarian dish. There are bold versions that delight in everything from caramelised onions to saffron and black cardamom. As Birbal rightly points out in a delicious fable, the only indispensable ingredient to cook a khichdi is fire. It is a dish that defies stereotypes, cuts across class and caste and shows us the key to Indian cooking is inventiveness.


P o n g a l , which is considered traditional and homely, too shows innovation, as the Tamil mishmash has adopted newer ingredients and cooking methods. In Chennai, food researcher Shri Bala, who has been studying Sangam literature (400 BCE to 300 CE), says early versions of pongal had a few basic ingredients. “Moong gram was the ancient lentil (toor came later). Rice was used by the wealthy and millets by ordinary people. Then a mixture of four things called sambharam was used to flavour the dish — salt, black pepper, cumin and curry leaves,” says Shri Bala.

Nothing, however, can beat the fabled nawabi khichdi when it comes to inveninventiveness. The raqabdars (specialist cooks) of Lucknow were highly paid for their creativity, according to Abdul Halim Sharar’s 19th century classic Guzishta Lucknow. One of their creations was a khichdi made of almonds and pistachios carved to resemble individual grains of rice and lentils. We may never get to taste it but other historic khichdis have been recreated. Persian scholar Salma Husain records the preferences of the Mughals in her book The Emperor’s Table. According to her, Jahangir was fond of lazeezan, an elaborate dish of moong dal and rice, layered with meat koftas and flavoured with saffron, cream, almonds and rose petals.

Aurangzeb loved the relatively spartan qabooli — rice and Bengal gram, where the dal was first bhunao-ed in yoghurt. The qabooli must have travelled to the Deccan, where it still exists, albeit as a dying dish. Asma Khan, lawyer-turned-chef whose restaurant Darjeeling Express has been garnering acclaim in London and who is set to feature as the first chef from Britain on the popular Netflix series Chef’s Table this spring, recalls her first taste of qabooli in Hyderabad. She found the name striking because it sounds like what a bride says at nikah: “Qabool hai, I do.” Khan cooks it for her catering services in London while her restaurant features the UP-style khichdi with garam masala. Spiced with black cardamom, cloves, tej patta and cinnamon, it is another example of inventiveness, turning a common man’s dish into elite, aromatic food.

At Bengaluru’s Mavalli Tiffin Room (MTR), bisi bele bhath, too, has had a makeover. “It is a spiced-up version of the traditional Mysuru dish concocted by my great-uncle Yagnanarayan Maiya (one of the founders of MTR),” says Hema Malini Maiya, MTR’s third-generation co-owner. Neither dal nor rice is essential for these mishmashes. Either or both can be substituted with a region’s staples.

Chef Ranveer Brar mentions the kusubi huggi from northern Karnataka as one of the unique preparations that he has come across. Made like a salty porridge with rice and the milk extracted from kusubi (safflower) seeds, this is a festive dish cooked with a turmeric leaf thrown in. In Rajasthan, soitas, which are porridge-like, are traditionally cooked with either bajra or jowar and meat. Chef Akshraj Jodha of ITC Windsor in Bengaluru has put this recipe on his coffee shop menu.

Then there is Indori khees, a mishmash of corn, which is often dubbed khichdi in parts of Gujarat. This has inspired chef Manish Mehrotra to create a comfort dish at his new restaurant. Mehrotra seems to have a fascination for khichdi, which shows up in different avatars on his menus: bajra khichdi with beef laal maas in London, gobindbhog khichdi with paturi in Gurgaon and Lucknowi khichda with lamb in his upcoming menu at Indian Accent in Delhi. “It is versatile and a complete meal and can be used as a comfort dish or to highlight other hero dishes,” says Mehrotra. “In India, khichdi is not one dish but a term to refer to the consistency of a dish,” he says.

Even this is only partially true. The soita can be runny. Khichda, cooked with five six dals, and the Bengali bhog khichuri with vegetables are mashy. Then there are khichdis which are dry. The green gram and basmati khichdi that I ate some years ago at filmmaker Muzaffar Ali’s home had each grain separate and glistening with ghee. It was served with caramelised onions and a shorba. A khichdi to challenge stereotypes.