Kandi pachadi is a traditional Andhra style chutney or condiment made with toor dal, garlic, red chilies and spices. Andhra cuisine is well known for spicy and hot foods. We make a variety of chutneys known as pachadi for our everyday meals. This kandi pachadi is a traditional recipe which was made in the earlier days.
Kandi is the telugu name for pigeon peas. Pachadi means chutney in telugu. Kandi pachadi refers to a chutney made with pigeon peas.
Toor dal or pigeon peas were one of the most commonly cultivated lentils in the region. Apart from making pappu or dal dishes for their everyday meal even this chutney was made to go with hot rice and ghee.
Kandi pachadi is also served with breakfast foods like idli, dosa, punugulu & garelu. In the modern days, most women have forgotten this chutney and is rarely made. Same with me as my mom never made kandi pachadi and I had never even eaten this until I got married.
My husband loves this kandi pachadi a lot and always would suggest me to learn this. I got to taste this in an authentic Andhra restaurant here in Singapore. After a few trials I am here with this awesome kandi pachadi recipe.
Kandi pachadi is made by deep roasting toor dal & red chilies. It is then blended with salt, tamarind, garlic and jeera. Lastly it is tempered with mustard, urad dal, curry leaves and red chilies.
If you prefer to serve this with rice, then make the pachadi to a thicker consistency using minimum water. Runny chutney doesn’t taste good with rice. Since I made it for our breakfast I made it slightly runny.
You can also roast the ingredients for chutney the previous night. Below are some variations I have tried.
Variations
- You can also use 1 small onion in the recipe. Just fry the cubed onion well until golden to bring out the sweet aroma.
- A tablespoon of urad dal can also be used in the recipe. Fry it very well until golden after frying the urad dal.
- Sometimes I also add a handful of coriander leaves to add flavor.
More chutney recipes
Peanut chutney
curry leaves chutney
beerakaya pachadi
capsicum chutney
Ginger chutney
Kandi pachadi or toor dal chutney
kandi pachadi
For best results follow the step-by-step photos above the recipe card
Ingredients (1 cup = 240ml )
- ¼ cup toor dal (split pigeon peas or)kandi pappu
- ½ teaspoon cumin or jeera
- 3 red chilies or green chilies (slit) (adjust to taste)
- 2 small garlic cloves
- ½ teaspoon tamarind (adjust to taste)
- ¼ teaspoon salt to taste
- 1 teaspoon oil
seasoning
- 1 sprig curry leaves
- 1 clove garlic crushed
- 1 red chili broken
- ¼ teaspoon cumin (optional)
- ¼ teaspoon mustard
- 1 teaspoon Oil
Instructions
- Rinse toor dal very well a few times & drain the water completely.
- Heat 1 tsp of oil & fry the dal on a medium flame till you get a nice aroma. Dal has to turn deep golden. Remove to a plate.
- Fry red chilies on a low flame till they turn crispy. Add garlic & cumin to the same pan & fry just for 30 seconds.
- Cool all the ingredients and add to a blender along with salt & tamarind.
- We usually soak tamarind in little warm water and filter it to the grind the chutney.
- Grind the ingredients with little water to a smooth or coarse kandi pachadi. Adjust the consistency as desired. Smooth chutney goes well with snacks and breakfasts. Coarse kandi pachadi tastes good with rice.
- Taste the toor dal chutney and add more salt and tamarind if needed.
Tempering kandi pachadi
- Heat 1 tsp oil in a pan, add cumin and mustard.
- When they begin to crackle, add curry leaves and garlic.
- Fry til curry leaves turn crisp. Pour this to the kandi pachadi and mix well.
NUTRITION INFO (estimation only)
Alternative quantities provided in the recipe card are for 1x only, original recipe.
For best results follow my detailed step-by-step photo instructions and tips above the recipe card.
© Swasthi’s Recipes
Suvarna says
Super good receipes
RAVI CHANDRA says
Simple, good recipe…and very tasty too…
swasthi says
Thanks
Kavitha says
Wanted to try this but ran out of chillies, in such case is it ok to use red chilli powder for any pachadi?
swasthi says
Kavitha I wonder how it would taste with chili powder. Most pachadi recipes do not work well with powder. If you have green chilies you can use
shalini says
VERY HEALTHY & TASTY RECIPE !!!!!
This is a very good chutney without coconut, I had this today morning with Idli. All of them from my home liked this very much, coz they were few disappointed, as if I was not preparing much chutney due to coconut in it.
This chutney is very helpful for those who tries to avoid coconut.
Thank you for posting such a healthy recipe.
swasthi says
Thank you shalini for your time to leave a feedback
🙂
PT says
like your presentation.. yummy yum..