Kitchari
Kitchari: a gentle stew of rice and mung beans with mild spices — the comfort and cleansing dish of Ayurvedic cooking. Discover why it is so easy to digest.
Kitchari (or khichdi, khichari) comes from Hindi and means a "mixture": in practice, a stew of rice and split mung beans (mung dal), simmered together with ghee and mild spices — cumin, turmeric, ginger — down to a creamy, risotto-like consistency. It is the most emblematic dish of Ayurvedic cooking, served to convalescents and panchakarma patients alike.
Its reputation rests on three qualities. It is complete: grain plus legume makes a balanced protein. It is very easy to digest: mung dal is considered the gentlest legume for agni, especially when simmered at length. And it is tridoshic: the basic version suits all three constitutions, and you only need to adjust the spices or vegetables to tailor it to each. It is the dish the tradition prescribes whenever digestion falters: it nourishes without demanding any effort from the digestive fire.
A concrete example: one cup of basmati rice, half a cup of soaked mung dal, a spoonful of ghee, spices, four parts water, 30 to 40 minutes of gentle cooking — the ideal dinner after a run of over-rich meals. The step-by-step recipe is in our article kitchari: the basic recipe, and its use as a cleanse in the 3-day kitchari mono-diet.