Cucumber Kichadi / Pachadi

Most regions in Kerala call this dish Pachadi, but towards the south of Kerala it is called Kichadi.This is made with Indian cucumber or kani vellarikka. ‘kani’ ( ‘n’ is pronounced as in money) is added to the vellarikka (cucumber) part since it is kept as an offering for God on Vishu, which is the New Year for Malayalam calendar.

This type of cucumber available in Kerala is very soft inside and has the texture of the fleshy part of a very ripe apple. It is plucked when it is ripe and turns golden yellow in color.Peel the cucumber and discard the seeds. Dice into very small pieces (3 cups). You can definitely use English cucumber or any other cucumber variety too.Sprinkle some water and cook covered with some salt in low heat. Since cucumber has lot of water content, make sure you only sprinkle some water while cooking.

When it is cooked, add a very fine paste of coconut (Grind together 1 cup of freshly grated coconut, 1 tsp of black mustard seeds, 4 green chilies). Add ¼ cup of water if the paste is not watery. The dish should be thick so don’t add too much water. After adding the coconut, when it boils and the water evaporates, take off from fire.Heat 1 tsp coconut oil, splutter ¼ tsp mustard seeds, sauté 1 broken red chili.
Add to the dish and then add 1.5 cups of very thick curd (Not very sour and without any lumps).Serve with rice.This also is one of the Onam Sadyadish.