Palak Kadi (Spinach in Yogurt base gravy)

Kadi is different than curry. The Kadi which I'm talking about today is basically yogurt based punjabi kadi, made using chickpea flour. Regular combination is with pakoras, which is absolute favorite of mine. Where as Curry is a term mainly used for any kind of dish which is gravy based and can have many versions of it, like tomato based, onion & tomato based, coconut based. To get the perfect flavors of punjabi kadi you need sour yogurt/home made dahi, even buttermilk will also do. It's perfect way to turn sour yogurt to tasty dish. So if you have 2-3 days old dahi, it's perfect for kadi or otherwise I prefer to leave it out of the fridge overnight at some warm place  and next day cook it into kadi.

What U need :

• 2 cups of sour dahi / buttermilk / plain yoghurt (in case of yoghurt dilute it using 1/2 cup of water)
• 4 Tblsp. of chickpea flour (beasn)
• 1 big bunch of spinach washed & chopped
• 1 tsp. black mustard ( rai) seeds
• 1 tsp. cumin (jeera)
• 2-3 cloves (laung)
• 2 whole dry red chillies
• 1 Tblsp. chopped garlic
• 1 Tblsp. chopped ginger
• 3-4 green hot peppers chopped
• 1tsp. tumeric (haldi) powder
• 1 tsp. coriander (dhania) powder
• 1 tsp. degi mirch / paprika

What to do :

1. Whisk the yogurt, add chickpea flour and all dry spices to it & whisk it to remove all the lumps. Keep it aside.
2. Heat little oil in a heavy bottom karahi/wok. Add mustard seeds, cumin, whole red chillies, cloves and let them splutter a bit.
3. Add garlic, ginger and sprinkle some salt on it, to prevent ginger from sticking to the bottom of the pan.
4. Add the yogurt mixture to the pan.
5. Add around 4 cups of water. Once the whole mixture starts to boil turn the gas to the setting( med. high works for me) where it will still boil but won't overflow. 
6. Let it cook for approximately 30 minutes or so, stirring occasionally. Add spinach and let it cook for another 20 minute or so. Also adjust the consistency of the kadi, add more water if it's getting too thick or let it boil bit more if it's too thin. 
7. Once cooked, kadi tends to get thicker keep that in mind while adjusting the consistency.
8. Classic combo is with rice but you can always serve it with naan/ roti.

If the yogurt / dahi was sour you will get the perfect sour kadi. The recipe above is missing pakoras and some whole spices in it which are normally used when punjabi pakora wali kari is made, as my kids don't like Kadi with whole lot of whole spices in it. I will post the punjabi kari with pakoras whenever I make next time, this is little litter version of that.

Before I sign off this post I would like to say thanks to my blogger friends for visiting my blog everyday for  last 7 days and  leaving thoughts on my spinach week special. Though there are many more recipes which I cook with spinach but either they are very usual one like saag, dal palak, palak paneer or I didn't get to take the pictures. So, for now no more spinach on the blog everyday but it's surely making it's appearance on our dinner table everyday. And once in a while more recipes with spinach will make appearance on the blog too.