Somehow a trip to Kerala or anywhere near Kerala would be incomplete without sampling some steaming Puttu and Kadala curry.

Revenge is a dish best served cold. Kadala curry is a dish best served sweet. It is keeps company to a generous helping of Puttu, usually accompanied by some pappadam, sugar or banana or any combination of these.

I don’t have the contraption to make Puttu here, so I thought I’d made my favorite Kadala Curry

Here we go now!

What you need:

Black Chana: 200 gms

Grated Coconut: 50 gms

Kashmir Red Chillies: 7 nos.

Onion: 1 medium sized no.

Corainder seeds: 4 Tsp

Curry leaves: Of one stem

Cinnamon: 2″ stick

Baking Soda: a pinch of

Mustard Seeds: 1 Tsp

Sunflower Oil, Salt, Haldi

Lets Do This:

Soak the Black Chana for 12 hours. Soaking it overnight is a good idea. They’ll go from a light and listless brown to a bright and vibrant brown. Wash the chana, put it in a cooker, drown the little tykes in water. Put em’ in a cooker, heat it up and practice counting to 5.

Now let’s get to the base, the gravy, the substance of the dish. Take a small kadai, put in about 2 Tsps oil and keep it on low flame. Add 5 red chillis (after removing their hats), corinader seeds, onion and dalchini. Fry everything around, till you have some sparkling, golden brown looking coriander seeds. It should take about 3 minutes. Take a whiff of that. Now, add all the grated coconut and continue stir-frying. I used to wonder whether people would even realize that I had fried the coconut. But believe you me, when I took this dish to office, with one taste, they appreciated the fried coconut in an instant. Who would have thunk?

Fry the coconut for two minutes. Now make everything jump from the frying pan to the grinder.

Add as little water as possible and grind, baby, grind. It would be a good idea to grind it to as good a paste as is possible.

5 whistles should be done by now. Remove the weight, let the steam out and open it after a few minutes.
Put 2 Tsp of oil and the mustard seed, the last two chillies, halved breadth wise, the curry leaves and I tsp of haldi powder. Let them get to know each other at a low flame. When things start to pop, put in the paste that we just got grinded and fry it around just for fun. Put in a glass of water. (Hint: You can use this to clean out the grinder).

Fry for 3 more minutes and add the black chana in. Put a lid on it and heat for some 5 minutes, till you get the consistency that you want. I prefer mine a little thick, so I heat it longer.

Takes it off, say “Yemmy Kadala Curry” and eat up. If you don’t have Puttu, you can use bread, chappathi or even rice.