This recipe is from my memories. My mother used to go to the market and do her rounds of the temple in Matunga about thrice a week from time I can remember. It has stopped now because of COVID, and had reduced to about twice a week a couple of years back, but this used to be the routine all through my growing up years. On those days, she would have to come back home and then make dinner for us. Some days, when time was short, she used to rustle this dish up to go with rice and any leftover stir fry vegetable. An extremely quick recipe, this can be made in less than 10 minutes start to finish. My mother used to add tomatoes to it, which, because of the quick cooking time would be slightly raw and which I hated at that time. So I would make sure I avoided getting any tomatoes in my plate. My sister, on the other hand, loved the tomatoes, so to us, it was a win-win situation. My version does not have any tomatoes, but you can add them if you want. This can also be a version of Kadhi, albeit one without any thickening agent like coconut or chickpea flour.

This dish is prepared across Tamil households and made when you need to make something very quickly. It can also be drunk as a cooling yoghurt based dish when it is hot outside as it will cool the body down. I served this with a carrot thogayal and a vegetable stir-fry for lunch with brown rice.

Mor Chaar

Ingredients:

• 1 cup yoghurt, thinned to about 2 cups and beaten well
• Salt to taste
• 1 tsp oil
• 1 tsp mustard seeds
• ¼ tsp fenugreek seeds
• ¼ tsp asafoetida
• 5-6 curry leaves
• ¼ tsp turmeric powder
• 2-3 dried red chillies
• Finely chopped coriander leaves to garnish

Method:

• Whisk the yoghurt to thin it, add salt to taste and keep aside.
• Heat the oil in a pan and when the oil warms, add the mustard seeds
• When the mustard seeds pop, add the fenugreek seeds, dried red chillies, asafoetida and curry leaves and let the curry leaves crackle.
• Add the turmeric powder and stir for a couple of seconds.
• Now reduce the flame of the gas and pour in the whisked yoghurt, continuously stirring so the yoghurt does not curdle.
• Keep stirring and whisking the buttermilk and on a low to medium flame, let this come to a nice rolling boil.
• Boil for a few minutes and switch off. Garnish with coriander leaves and serve hot with rice and a vegetable.