Bajre Ki Khichdi is a millet special Jayanti Soni makes for her family, that’s much loved because it’s light and tasty. It can be had for breakfast or your main course. It’s nutritious too and a staple preparation of Rajasthan.

There are many permutation-combinations of this recipe – the khichdi can be sweetened and eaten like porridge or you can add in a sprinkling of more pulses and chopped vegetables and cook it up like upma or a sabzi khichdi to create a more filling one-pot dish. While pongals, bisi bele baths and upmas belong firmly to the South and khichdis to the north and east, somewhere near the Vindhyas they begin to meet and you realise grains cooked with pulses/lentils, a dash of ghee, and sometimes vegetables is actually a pan-India dish. 

Jayanti offers yet another variation of this khichdi from Rajasthan. Made in nearly exactly the same manner, her unusual Makke Ki Ghat uses cracked yellow corn.

Her recipes have a special strictly traditional authenticity to them and are of unique dishes that have been cooked in her family for generations. Please have a look at all her recipes here. When she is not lovingly rustling something wholesome up for her family, Jayanti teaches and also loves to sing; she is a trained singer.

Bajre Ki Khichdi

Serves: 4-5

Ingredients

• 150 gm bajra or pearl millets
• 10 gm chawli ki dal or cow peas
• 10 gm green mung dal or green gram
• 10 gm rice
• 600 ml boiling hot water
• 5-10 gm chana dal or Bengal gram, optional
• 5-10 gm black urad dal or black gram, optional
• 5-10 gm yellow mung dal, optional
• 3-4 lavang or cloves, crushed
• Salt to taste, about 1½ tsp
• 1-inch piece ginger, grated or finely chopped, optional
• 2 green chillies, finely chopped, optional
• 10 gm crushed peanuts, optional
• 100-150 gm chopped seasonal vegetables, including onions, optional
• Ghee or white butter, for serving
• Grated jaggery, for serving, optional

Method

• Either crush the bajra in a mortar and pestle or okhli, till each grain breaks in half.
  Alternately pulse in a mixer (don't over grind or it will become flour). 
  Keep aside.
• Do the same for the chawli.
  Keep aside.
• Soak the crushed bajra, in a saucepan, with the salt, chawli, cloves, green mung dal, rice and the boiling hot water for 30 minutes.
• Heat the bajra mixture in the same saucepan over high heat and keep stirring till it starts boiling (please see the video below).
  If using more varieties of dal, peanuts, ginger, chillies and vegetables, add these into the saucepan as you begin cooking.
  Allow the mixture to boil for 5 minutes on high heat.
  Lower heat and cook for 20 minutes, stirring all the time.
  Place a tawa under the saucepan (or any other heat diffuser pan) and continue to cook the bajra over low heat for another 20 minutes till it becomes a thickish porridge.
• Take off heat and serve with the ghee or white butter.
• If you are not making the more savoury version with vegetables, serve with a little jaggery too.
  It can also be served with chaas or buttermilk.

Editor's Note: For a vegan version, opt for cashew butter instead of ghee.

WATCH: How to make Bajre Ki Khichdi:

Makke Ki Ghat

Serves: 4-5

Ingredients

• 200 gm yellow makke ka daliya or cracked yellow corn porridge
• 800 ml water
• Salt to taste, about 1½ tsp
• Ghee or white butter, for serving

Method

• Wash the makke ka daliya well.
  Soak for 45 minutes in water.
  The white pieces in the daliya should be removed as these pieces do not cook well and affect the taste of the ghat.
  Therefore wash the daliya 6-8 times with water to remove all white pieces because while washing the white will separate from the yellow (as per the pic above. Also please see the video below).
• Heat the makke ka daliya with 800 ml water and salt over high heat and keep stirring till it starts boiling.
  Allow it to boil for 5 minutes, stirring all the time, so it doesn’t stick to the bottom of the saucepan.
  Place a tawa under the saucepan (or any other heat diffuser pan) and continue to cook the daliya over low heat for another 20 minutes.
  Take off heat and serve with the ghee or white butter.
• It can also be served with a yoghurt or chaas or buttermilk.

Editor's Note: For a vegan version, opt to use cashew butter instead of ghee.

Jayanti Soni lives in Kandivli, north Mumbai, and Rajasthani food is her speciality.

WATCH: How to make Makke Ki Ghat

 Photographs and videos: Dhairya Soni

• MORE AWESOME RECIPES