Sol Kadi...Curry for the Soul

Back from a fabulous monsoon wedding at Goa this July...I tried the sol kadi at every place I could in the brief stay, viz. Mum's Kitchen and Taj Exotica.

Regrettfully they didn't quite get it home-style right!

And so I decided to reverse engineer the recipe based on my recall by taste and appearance of what I've had at our friends Bal & Shailaja Pangam's place.

Guess what...it lucked out perfect...or then so was endorsed by our Maharashtrian guests (Pendses) who got to have this as an apertif in wine glasses pre-lunch last weekend:)

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:

1. 4-6 pieces wet kokum

2. 1 fresh coconut (1 medium-large, finely grated)

3. Approx. 800ml drinking water

4. A pinch of hing/asafoetida

5. 1 clove of garlic (finely grated through a cheese grater)

6.1/2 cm of ginger (also finely grated or pounded)

7. Salt to taste

8. 4-6 green chillies (slit lengthwise)

9. Handful of fresh coriander leaves finely chopped

10. Pinch of sugar (optional)

11. 1 drop of Cochineal (crimson red) food colour

This is optional should the kokum be dry and not impart the final, desired pinkish colour

Method:

1. Blend the grated coconut with half the water in a food processor or immersion style blender.

Strain through a fine sieve or muslin cloth.

2. Add half the remainder of the water to the extracted coconut. Repeat the first step and pool the extracts.

The coconut extract is really dilute, looks murky white and quite like zero fat milk!

3. Extract the kokum for its sourness and colour in the remaining water made hot (not warm, not boiling). With fresh kokum this requires typically no more than 30min of immersion.

4. Mix the cooled (room temperature), strained kokum extract with the fresh coconut extract.

5. Add in the asafoetida, garlic, ginger, chillies, salt and sugar (optional) and food colouring (if required) at this stage. Adjust these ingredients to get a blend that suits the palate

6. Mix well. Drop in the chopped coriander leaves and chill for 2-3hr before serving.

While the sol kadi is apparently, traditionally had with steamed white rice and fried fish (pomfret) its just great by itself...literally a curry in a glass that's good for the soul!