Chow Chow bath

I am just starting with this month's Blogging Marathon and I have chosen Kid's friendly breakfast recipes to start with. Today I will be blogging about Chow Chow Bath.

I heard this recipe name for the first time after I started living in Bangalore. Initially I thought this is a rice item made with the vegetable chayote (chow chow, bangalore kathrika). Later I got to know that in Karnataka a combination of rava kichadi and kesari is served and this combination is called chow chow bath!!

I guess we can serve either rava kichadi or rava upma for this recipe. We call it kichadi if the rava is cooked with vegetables, tomato and lots of ghee/ oil with more water. And upma if the water ratio is less and simple without any vegetables or tomato. Here both the recipes are made with lot of ghee.

When I tasted this, it felt awesome to eat this savory khara bath and sweet kesari bath side by side. And with coconut chutney, its just out of the world. Do try this out for your kids breakfast and I am sure the kids will love it!!

I am posting a recipe how to prepare this together. You can check out the individual recipes in the links below

Rava upma

Rava kesari

Coconut chutney

Ingredients:

Rava (roasted) - 1 cup

Onion - 1

Tomato - 1

Carrot - 1

Beans (chopped) - 1/4 cup

Green chillies - 5

Ginger, chopped finely - 2 tsp

Turmeric - 1/4 tsp

Salt - As needed 

Water - 5 cups

Ghee - 1/4 cup

Sugar - 1/2 cup

cardamom powder - A pinch

Cashew nuts - 7-8 nos

Raisins - 10 nos

mustard - 2 tsp

curry leaves - few

tamarind - a pinch

Method:

• Grate coconut, chop all the vegetables needed for the khara bath / kichadi.
• First grind the coconut chutney. In a mixer jar add grated coconut, ginger, pinch of tamarind, green chillies and salt. Add little water and grind it into a smooth paste.
• In a kadai, pour 1 tsp ghee. Fry the cashewnuts and raisins and keep aside.
• Add 1 tsp ghee. Once the ghee is hot, add mustard and curry leaves. Once the mustard splutters pour 1 tbsp of this to the coconut chutney.
• In the remaining ghee add the chopped onions, green chillies and ginger. Fry until the onion turns translucent. Add all the remaining chopped vegetables. Fry for a minute. Add 2 cups of water. 
• Add salt and allow the water to boil.
• Parallely heat another kadai. Add 2.5 cups of water and bring it to a boil. Once the water is boiled add 1/2 cup of rava. Mix well. Lower the flame. Close and allow the rava to get cooked.
• Meanwhile in the other kadai, water would have boiled. Add 1/2 cup rava, mix well. Cover and cook until all the water is absorbed.
• In the second kadai -  the rava would have cooked now and would be in a semi-solid consistency. 
• Add the sugar, keep the flame in medium and stir well.
• As soon as you add sugar, the rava mixture will again become watery and you may notice 2-3 lumps again formed. Stir well as in a way to mash those lumps.
• Open the first kadai. the rava kichadi would be ready now. Add 2 tbsp ghee, mix well and keep aside.
• To the kesari, stir well for 5 minutes. Add the remaining ghee, cardamom powder and the fried cashews and raisins. Mix well and switch off flame.

Chow chow bath is ready!! Serve 1 cup of kichadi, 1 cup of kesari  and 1 cup of coconut chutney. I served it along with banana.

Notes:

• You can add food color to kesari to give it an orange color. I generally avoid adding food color.
• Both the kichadi and kesari should be made with lots of ghee and more amount of water to get a soft texture.

Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing this BM#67