Black Channa in Coconut Milk Gravy

The other day a friend of mine from Kerala asked me what I was having for lunch and I told her, kadala curry. How you can eat kadalacurry with rice, she exclaimed. Is that a good combination? , she wondered.

Oh honey, this is U.S.A. Anything goes with anything. Actually you can eat kadala curry as breakfast with oats too. All combination looks good when one is hungry, juggling between jobs, kids, school, work, laundry, house cleaning. Jeez! People in Kerala have been spoiled a lot, I say.

This is that “combination” kadalacurry in coconut milk.
Black channa dal comes dry and you have to soak it twelve hours in water before cooking. So you see you got to think ahead these days. :-) After soaking, wash it thoroughly and drain. When you soak, small insects etc come out from the dried channa if any and so it is a must you wash it after soaking.

For 3 cups of soaked black channa, add 1 cup of thinly diced onion, 1 tablespoon of diced ginger, 6 pods of garlic diced, 2 tomatoes diced, 2 sprig of curry leaves, 2 teaspoon of chili powder, ¼ teaspoon of turmeric powder and enough salt.

Microwave for one minute, 4 table spoon of coriander seeds, 3 cardamom, 1 cinnamon, 3 cloves, 2 tsp pepper, 2 cashew nuts, 1 bay leaf, 2 tsp mace. Then grind it in your coffee grinder and add to the mix.

Add water 2 cups of water to this mixture. Pressure cook for double the time you use for toor dal.

Now heat two tablespoon of oil, splutter ¼ tsp mustard seeds, sauté ½ diced onion, 1 sprig of curry leaves and add the cooked black channa. When it starts to boil, add 1 cup of coconut milk. As soon as it starts to boil, take off from heat.

Oh yes, serve it with anything. As long as you are hungry, anything goes.