Uluva Kanji

Kerala's soothing fenugreek and rice gruel: red rice simmered soft with soaked fenugreek seed, finished with coconut milk and cumin, given to the sick, the elderly, and above all to women after childbirth

Origin: Kerala, South India

From the journey of Fenugreek.

Kanji is the rice gruel of Kerala, the plainest thing the Malayali kitchen makes and the first thing it reaches for when anybody is unwell: rice cooked in far more water than it needs, until the grains collapse and the starch thickens the liquid to a soft, comforting porridge. Uluva kanji is kanji made with uluva, the Malayalam name for fenugreek seed, and it belongs less to the dinner table than to the sickroom and the birth chamber. Across Kerala it is cooked for the recovering, the elderly, and, most of all, for women in the weeks after childbirth, when it is given daily in the belief that it eases the body, cools the system, and increases the mother's milk. That belief is not local eccentricity but the southern Indian expression of the single most widely shared item of folk medicine on earth: fenugreek has been given to nursing mothers from Morocco to Bengal, and the practice is set down in the Egyptian Ebers Papyrus of about 1550 BCE. The gruel is also simply good, and eaten as an everyday breakfast in many households. The seed is soaked overnight to soften it and to leach away its harshest bitterness, then simmered with the rice until both are tender; coconut milk goes in at the end, off the heat, with a little cumin and shallot, and the finished kanji is warm, faintly bitter, gently sweet from the coconut, and eaten with nothing more than a piece of pickle or a spoonful of grated coconut.

Ingredients

Kanji

  • 2 tbsp whole fenugreek seeds (uluva)
  • 150 g Kerala red parboiled rice (matta rice), or short-grain white rice
  • 1.5 litres water
  • 1 tsp fine salt, or to taste

To Finish

  • 200 ml thick coconut milk
  • 1 tsp cumin seeds, lightly crushed
  • 4 small shallots, thinly sliced
  • 2 cloves garlic, crushed (optional)
  • 1 tbsp coconut oil
  • 1 sprig fresh curry leaves

Method

  1. Rinse the fenugreek seeds and soak them in plenty of cold water overnight, or for at least 8 hours. Drain and rinse well.
  2. Rinse the rice until the water runs clear. Put the rice, the drained fenugreek seeds, and the water in a large heavy pan and bring to a boil.
  3. Reduce the heat and simmer, uncovered or partly covered, stirring now and then to stop the rice catching, for 35 to 45 minutes, until the grains have swollen and burst, the fenugreek seeds are soft, and the liquid has thickened to a loose porridge.
  4. Stir in the salt. Take the pan off the heat and stir in the thick coconut milk. Do not let it boil after the coconut milk goes in.
  5. Heat the coconut oil in a small pan, add the cumin seeds, curry leaves, sliced shallots, and garlic, and fry until the shallots are golden. Pour this tempering over the kanji, stir once, and serve warm in bowls.

Notes

The kanji is meant to taste gently bitter beneath the sweetness of the coconut; if it is unpleasantly harsh, your seeds were under-soaked. Reduce the fenugreek to one tablespoon for a milder gruel, or increase it to three for the medicinal version given to nursing mothers, in which the seed rather than the rice is the point. Some Kerala households add a little grated jaggery instead of the tempering, making a sweet uluva kanji. It keeps for a day in the refrigerator and thickens to a solid mass; loosen with hot water and reheat gently. Those who are pregnant are traditionally advised to avoid fenugreek in quantity.

The Gastrographer

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