Easy Steps to Make Perfect Sabudana Khichadi at Home

I ate Sabudana (Javvarisi, Sago, Tapioca pearls) Khichadi for the first time when I was 7 or 8 in Dehu Road. Many years later I found the recipe handwritten by my dear friend Adeeti’s mother, Bakre aunty. Ever since that age, it’s my comfort food. I don’t eat it often simply because of the all starch tag, but I make it at least once a month.

About ten years back I finally found a brand of Sabudana that is simply the best – Varalakshmi.

It soaks quickly, so if you forgot to soak it overnight, you can still make Khichadi or Kheer as it becomes plump and completely soaks the water in 20 minutes.

Here is my process of making Sabudana Khichadi as taught to me by my BFF Geetu ❤️.

1. Soak the Sabudana overnight in a flat bottom vessel with a thin film of water over it.
2. Cover it with a cloth or a sieve.
3. In the morning before starting to cook it, coarsely grind Jeera (cumin) and roasted peanuts in a mixie and mix it into the overnight soaked Sabudana. By the morning, the Tapioca pearls should be plump but without any extra water.
4. You can use Ghee or Oil, ideally ghee to make the Sabudana Khichadi. A TBSP or two is sufficient. I know Adeeti is smiling, because I remember what quantity of ghee she ladled into the frying pan when she made the Sabudana Khichadi for me at her place… am yet to walk it off :):).
5. If you like mustard, you can let it sputter, I don’t. You can cut some green chillies and let them become brown. I add steamed potato cubes later.
6. Now add the sabudana mixed with the peanut+Jeera powder into the frying pan.
7. Add salt to taste, desiccated coconut and a little later steamed potato cubes that have no water dripping off them.
8. Even though it’s called “Khichadi” the Tapioca pearls must not stick to each other ! – that’s the test of the Sabudana Khichadi that I have failed many times before getting a hang of it.
9. You can add fresh coriander leaves and a TSP of sugar or jaggery just as it’s cooked fully.
10. Serve with a dash of lemon juice and this dish needs no accompaniment. But, another dear friend took me to a Maharashtrian restaurant in Mumbai and got me hooked onto this sweetened curd as an accompaniment. The Khichadi does taste great with that.

Enjoy this amazing Maharashtrian dish sparingly … it’s not all bad for health, but too much of it doesn’t work. But hey, too much of anything is bad anyway.

#GoVegetarian #MaharashtrianFood