Ker Sangri

The Marwari desert dish of dried caper berries and khejri pods, cooked in mustard oil with chilli and yoghurt

Origin: Jodhpur & Marwar, Rajasthan, India

From the journey of Caper.

Ker sangri is what a cuisine looks like when there are no vegetables. Marwar, the desert country around Jodhpur and Jaisalmer, has little rain, no reliable green crop, and long stretches of the year when nothing fresh can be had at all, and the Marwari kitchen was built accordingly on things that keep: pulses, buttermilk, clarified butter, red chilli, and the dried fruits of the desert scrub. Two of those fruits make this dish. Ker is the small round berry of Capparis decidua, a leafless spiny caper bush that photosynthesises through its green twigs; it is picked green, dried, and stored, and it is intensely sour and slightly bitter. Sangri is the long thin pod of the khejri tree, Prosopis cineraria, the state tree of Rajasthan and a plant so central to desert life that the Bishnoi community famously died defending a grove of them in 1730. The pods are dried too, and are chewy and faintly sweet where the ker is sour. Both must be soaked, and the soaking is the whole difficulty of the dish. Dried ker is hard as gravel and carries a bitterness that has to be drawn out over many hours and several changes of water; skipped or shortened, the finished dish is unpleasantly harsh. Traditional households soak overnight in salted water or in buttermilk, which softens and sweetens at once. What goes with them is equally a product of the place. Mustard oil, whole red chillies, and a dry masala, with yoghurt rather than water to loosen it, because in a desert the animal was closer than the well. There is no onion and no garlic in the orthodox Marwari version, which reflects both the Jain and Vaishnav influence on Rajasthani vegetarian cooking and the simple fact that neither grew easily here. It keeps for days without refrigeration, which is why it travelled with traders and armies across the Thar, and it is served at weddings and festivals as a point of regional pride. Eaten with bajra millet roti and a spoonful of ghee, it is the defining plate of the Rajasthani desert.

Ingredients

To Soak

  • 60 g dried ker (Capparis decidua berries)
  • 80 g dried sangri (khejri pods), broken into 3 cm lengths
  • 1 tsp salt, for the soaking water

Tempering

  • 4 tbsp mustard oil
  • 1 tsp cumin seeds
  • 0.5 tsp carom seeds (ajwain)
  • 1 pinch asafoetida (hing)
  • 6 whole dried Mathania or Kashmiri red chillies, broken

Masala

  • 2 tsp ground coriander
  • 1.5 tsp Kashmiri red chilli powder
  • 0.5 tsp ground turmeric
  • 1 tsp amchur (dried mango powder)
  • 150 ml plain yoghurt, whisked smooth
  • 1 tsp salt, or to taste

To Finish

  • 40 g raisins, optional
  • 1 tbsp ghee

Method

  1. Rinse the ker and sangri and put them in a large bowl with the teaspoon of salt and plenty of cold water. Leave to soak for at least eight hours and preferably overnight, changing the water twice.
  2. Drain, rinse well, and put into a pan with fresh water to cover. Bring to the boil and simmer for 20 to 25 minutes, until the sangri is chewy but yielding and the ker is soft enough to squash between finger and thumb. Drain and set aside.
  3. Heat the mustard oil in a heavy pan until it smokes faintly, then take it off the heat for thirty seconds to cool slightly.
  4. Return to a medium heat and add the cumin, carom seeds, asafoetida, and broken dried chillies. Let them crackle for about thirty seconds until fragrant and the chillies have darkened a shade.
  5. Take the pan off the heat. Stir the ground coriander, chilli powder, and turmeric into the whisked yoghurt, then add the mixture to the pan away from the flame, stirring hard.
  6. Return to a low heat and cook, stirring constantly, for four to five minutes until the yoghurt has thickened, lost its rawness, and the oil begins to separate at the edges.
  7. Add the drained ker and sangri, the amchur, the raisins if using, and the salt. Stir to coat thoroughly and cook uncovered for eight to ten minutes over a low heat, adding a splash of water only if it catches.
  8. Stir the ghee through off the heat and leave to stand for ten minutes before serving.

Notes

Ker and sangri are sold dried by Rajasthani and North Indian grocers and online, usually together as a mixed packet, sometimes as part of panchkuta, the five desert ingredients that also include kumatiya, gunda, and dried red chilli. There is no substitute for either; capers from a jar are a different species, differently prepared, and will not work. The dish keeps for three or four days at room temperature and up to a week refrigerated, and it genuinely improves on the second day. That keeping quality is not incidental but the reason the dish exists, and it is why it was carried across the desert by traders and by armies. The orthodox Marwari version has no onion and no garlic, reflecting Jain and Vaishnav practice in Rajasthani vegetarian cooking. Non-orthodox households add both, and some add a spoonful of jaggery against the sourness. Serve with bajra ki roti, the millet flatbread of the region, a bowl of buttermilk, and a spoonful of ghee. It is also excellent cold, straight from the pot, which is how a good deal of it is actually eaten.

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