I once asked a man the secret to his grandmother’s good health and vitality at 90. Without a moment’s hesitation he replied: “koozh-kaḷi.” கூழ்-களி.
“Koozh” and “kaḷi” are a whole category of rice-based dishes that served usually for breakfasts as they tend to be filling, but also for kid-friendly snacks. The names of these dishes reference their textures. Koozh is semi-solid-to-watery (thinned with buttermilk; see earlier posts on fermented ragi koozh and kambu/bajra koozh); it is typically a light porridge with some bite and crunch. The classic koozh is always soured, but refers really to any such ground-cooked rice preparation (millets are also “arisi” in Tamil, rices), fermented or not.
Kaḷi tends to be more solid—custardy, really. It needs a spoon, or your fingers. Mor-kaḷi is the most popular variant, prepared as a quick-fix without fermentation, but ideally slow-fermented over a few days and stored for long after so it’s always there as a sort of always-available easy-to-digest quick-fix belly-filler [find the recipe for naturally soured mor-kaḷi here]. Most other kaḷis are not fermented but (a little like rasam) make use of one ingredient’s unique taste: ulundu kaḷi uses urad dal, sukku kaḷi uses dry ginger, rasavalli kali is all about the sweetness of the purple yam, and now vendhaya kaḷi uses methi or fenugreek seeds.
I learned the recipe for vendhaya kaḷi [வெந்தய களி] first from my friend Vijhay who wrote about it for Shalikuta. It took me a while to tweak proportions and perfect it though, so that my boys didn’t say it tasted like “sweet idli batter” and learned to relish the predominance of vendhayam, combined with the specific sweetness of panavellam or palm jaggery. Then it comes together marvelously, the strong bitters of methi/vendhayam melding with the coffee-toffee tones of palm jaggery, muted just lightly by the addition of an aromatic rice and the scents of cardamom, but then highlighted forcefully by the addition of a good, cold-pressed sesame oil.
The rice choice is secondary but not incidental–a good aromatic rice adds a nice depth of flavor. I’ve used gobindo bhog here, but mullan kazhama, ghandakashala, ambe mohar, and Krishna kamod will all work beautifully.
It bears mentioning that it’s the starchy-glutinous quality of rice, combined with the glutinousness of both vendhayam and urad dal that give the resulting kali its signature gooey texture. Some call it halva-like, but it’s neither cooked as far and as long as halvas, nor is it expected to set like a Tirunelveli halva or jiggle like the Bombay halva. Kalis are several steps before halvas, if they’re halvas at all.
The batter should be kept thick at first and while grinding to get to the necessary semi-fine texture, but then thinned before cooking–both to allow the rice to cook, and to keep from catching too fast at the bottom of the pan before anything has had a chance to cook!
It’s a “weird” recipe, by most accounts–a fenugreek custard really?? Such foods are likely not to be terribly popular because they don’t shy away from the more “difficult” tastes that are usually always present, but are typically camouflaged, in most of our cookery. Vendhayam or fenugreek after all has a certain omnipresence in our kitchens: it’s in pickles and thokkus; a must in dosa and idli batters; a key tempering ingredient for sambar; it’s in just about all the rasam powders I’ve ever encountered, and a small quantity always went into my father’s very special mango pulisseri. In all these preparations, however, no matter what indescribable flavor vendhayam adds, it stays hidden usually behind stronger sour tastes and chilli heat.
Not so with vendhaya kaḷi, which embraces all that we otherwise hide and asserts a strong personality. It’s bitter-sweet and quite literally so. You’ve got to learn to draw that out and to like that.
Vendhaya kaḷi is also a summer dish because vendayam/methi/fenugreek seeds are famously held to be body cooling (the leaves, on the other hand, are supposed to be warming). Drinking the water used to soak methi seeds on empty stomachs in the early mornings of hot summer days not only stimulates metabolism but keeps you feeling full and cool. Its touted as a weight-loss technique. It plays a role in regulating blood sugar and hormonal balances, especially for women. So also is this kaḷi fed to women, especially those feeding infant children (I had to stop eating it to reduce somewhat my milk supply when the babies weren’t drinking so thirstily). If warmth and comfort and the stored energies of full bellies are what we seek in the winters, our long and relentless summers demand lightness, respite, and above all relief. Vendhayam in all forms provides that, vendhaya kaḷi to start out the day most of all.
The written recipe is below, followed by the video I’d put on Instagram aeons ago.
Vendhaya Kali or Aromatic Rice and Fenugreek Custard
Ingredients
- ¼ cup aromatic raw rice
- ¾ tablespoon urad dal
- 2 tablespoons methi or fenugreek seeds
- 1 cup panavellam paakam—a thick syrup made by melting palm sugar jaggery plus more to serve on the side
- 1 tablespoon ghee or substitute for sesame oil
- 2-3 tablespoons marachekku nallyennai or cold pressed sesame oil plus more to serve
- 3-4 cardamom pods crushed into a fine powder
- 1 tablespoon broken cashew pieces to garnish optional
Instructions
- Soak the rice, urad dal and methi seeds for 3-4 hours or up to overnight. Together is fine.
- Before making the kali, prepare the panavalla paakam if you haven’t already–combine a block of jaggery with a cup of water and bring to a simmer on the stove. As the jaggery warms, it will be easy to crumble with a spoon. Once it’s dissolved, continue to boil until you get a thick syrup. Don’t worry too much about string-consistencies. Set aside.
- Grind the rice-dal-methi mixture with just enough water to make a semi-fine paste.
- The batter will be thick, so thin it with water until it is light and pours well. (Do not add too much water while grinding or it will be hard to get the right consistency. Get the batter to the right texture and then thin it). Thinning is important so that the batter doesn’t thicken too fast and catch at the bottom of the pan in the next step. Also, the rice in the batter needs water to cook properly!
- Set the pan on a low flame and mix continuously—the mixture will thicken fast and get lumpy if it’s not continually attended to. I use a wire whisk at this stage.
- When the batter thickens and starts to appear semi-cooked and a little glassy, add 1 tablespoon ghee—mix to incorporate—and then follow with 3 tablespoons sesame oil in 1-spoon increments. The batter will be a little “hydrophobic” and the oils will refuse to combine, so go slowly. Switching to a wooden spoon or spatula to mix in the fats makes it a little easier.
- Slowly pour in the panavella paakam, a little at a time, again mixing slowly but constantly to incorporate.
- The vendhaya kali is done when the mixture starts to look more glassy than chalky and when wet fingers leave small indents on the surface of the kali: the batter doesn’t stick to your fingers
- Add the crushed cardamom.
- Serve warm with more sesame oil drizzled over top and some more panavalla paakam on the side.
- Toast the broken cashew pieces in a little ghee, if you’re using, and scatter on top.
Notes
The traditional sweetener of choice is pana vellam or palm jaggery, but what’s to stop you from trying patali or nolen gud when it’s in season? (That’s just before the summer starts).
