Kombdi vade

A bone-in chicken curry with fried rice-flour dumplings and solkadhi beside it.

Chicken. Not vegetarian — contains chicken.

Ingredients

• 1.2 kg chicken on the bone, in pieces
• 3 onions, sliced
• 80 g fresh coconut, grated
• 3 tablespoons ginger and garlic paste
• 2 tablespoons malvani masala, or garam masala
• 2 teaspoons chilli powder
• 1 teaspoon turmeric
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 4 tablespoons coconut oil
• 300 g rice flour
• 80 g ragi flour
• 50 g wheat flour
• 1 teaspoon salt, for the vade
• about 280 ml hot water
• oil for deep frying
• 1 lemon, in wedges

Method

1. A BONE-IN CHICKEN CURRY WITH FRIED RICE-FLOUR DUMPLINGS AND SOLKADHI BESIDE IT. Its article lists the plate rather than a method, and the list is the dish: it CONSISTS OF A CHICKEN CURRY (INCLUDING CHICKEN PIECES WITH BONES), VADE (FLUFFY FRIED DUMPLINGS MADE OF RICE FLOUR, AND OCCASIONALLY OF WHEAT AND RAGI FLOUR), ONIONS, LEMON JUICE AND SOLKADHI (A GRAVY MADE FROM COCONUT MILK). Solkadhi is on its own page here, and the three parts are made separately.
2. THE BONES ARE SPECIFIED AND THEY MATTER. A Konkan chicken curry gets its body from the bone and the coconut, not from cream or cashew. Boneless chicken makes a thin, pale version of this.
3. ROAST THE COCONUT BEFORE IT IS GROUND. Dry pan until it is brown at the edges, then ground with the ginger and garlic. This is what makes a Malvani curry dark.
4. BROWN THE ONIONS HARD, THEN THE PASTE, THEN THE CHICKEN. Coconut oil. Ten minutes on the paste until the oil separates, then the chicken turned in it before any water goes near.
5. THE VADE DOUGH IS THREE FLOURS AND HOT WATER. Rice flour leading, with the ragi for colour and flavour and the wheat to hold it. Scalded with hot water and kneaded warm -- the article's word for the finished vade is FLUFFY, and that needs a well-worked dough.
6. PAT THEM OUT BY HAND, NOT WITH A PIN. Small discs, about half a centimetre, pressed out between wet palms or on a square of plastic.
7. FRY THEM AT A MEDIUM HEAT UNTIL THEY PUFF. Two or three minutes, turning once. They should swell and stay pale gold; browned, they go hard.
8. SERVED ALL THREE AT ONCE, WITH RAW ONION AND LEMON. Its article notes the dish is made at Gatahari, Gauri Ovase, Dev Diwali and Shimga in Raigad, Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg, and is otherwise about all year on the coast.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under India · All recipes