Hostel khichri

Till now my hostel cooking had been confined to preparing maggi (mostly cuppa mania) & boiling milk, thanks to the microwave in the pantry. But, the horrible mess food got the chef in me take charge of my lazy self. In my quest to lose weight & avoid the rich mess food, I had taken some khichri mixture, spices & desi ghee to the hostel. So, when the mess menu read poori & alu sabji, I knew it was time to do the shri ganesh of the ingredients. And so, with the blessings of ganeshjee in my hostel room, I prepared khichri in microwave…

1^st things first, the rice & moong dal mixture have to be soaked in water. But I was so hungry that I completely forgot about it. Anyway, I took some desi ghee in my new Borosil microwave safe bowl, put it in the microwave for 1 min, then put some laung & peppercorns that my mom in law had happily packed in the bowl. Once they cracked, I put the rice & dal mixture (washed 2-3 times with fresh water) along with spices (salt, red chilli powder, turmeric) & poured enough water to match up the height of index finger. Then, my khichri was off to the microwave at High for 15min.

These 15min transformed me literally to a hungry doggie! I knew it would take at least 10min or even more (since I hadn’t soaked the mixture) however, the intense hunger had me hovering around the microwave every 2 minutes.

As I waited for the khichri to get cooked, I remembered how my mother used to prepare the perfect khichri in pressure cooker, served with huge dollops of ghee & chopped onions. I used to hate it back then, but now I crave for even a single morsel of her dish. Wonder if mine would even have the right spices.

I wondered how good is it to have families, the best support system in whatever you do. I had just uttered that I wanted to cook on my own whenever the menu was bad at mess. My super caring husband had without delay, bought me the microwave bowls, desi ghee (so that my skin remains good in winters), the khichri mixture & a lot of other goodies. Mom in law had lovingly packed extra laung and spices & told me a 1000 times to put enough water & check with someone regarding Microwave cooking. Gosh! I was missing home.

Beep Beep Beep! The microwave signaled me the khichri was ready. Here it was, slightly watery, the dal not mashed as in cooker. But, the aroma of ghee, laung & peppercorns was amazing. Spicy & piping hot, it just made my day!

Piping Hot!