Chef, author, and entrepreneur Chitra Agrawal's huggi recipe = a hug in rice-and-lentil form. She and Kristen talk about what it's been like running Brooklyn Delhi amidst a pandemic, how to huggi-fy most any grain or legume in the pantry, and why potato can only help (not hurt!) a dish.
Referenced in this episode:
Genius-Hunter Extra-Credit:
Special thanks to listeners Stephanie (@leftoversforbreakfast__), Leah (@_leahd_), and Kristina (@veien_til_rom) for sharing your most comforting comforts!
What's your ultimate comfort food? Tell me all about it: genius@food52.com.
Kristen Miglore: (voiceover): Hi, I'm Kristen Miglore, lifelong genius hunter. For almost a decade, I've been unearthing the recipes that have changed the way we cook. Now on The Genius Recipe Tapes, we go behind the scenes with the geniuses themselves and we get to hear from you.
This week, my guest is Chitra Agrawal, the founder of Brooklyn Deli. She makes the delicious achaars and simmer sauces that you might have picked up before on the shelves at Whole Foods. Plus, she's the author of the cookbook Vibrant India, and she was a cooking class teacher and pop up dinner host back when we could do those things together. As you will hear more about in this episode, she is basically superwoman.
So we actually recorded this conversation at the end of June of 2020. The time of year that, in the past, I would have been writing about things like lobster rolls and no-churn ice cream in my column on Food52. But, of course, June 2020 was not like the Junes before it. We were all learning how to stock our pantries and cook well out of them, and we were also looking for some pretty deep, essential comfort. The kind that, speaking only for myself, I was not going to get from a lobster. So Chitra’s introduction to this recipe really resonated with me because, as she writes, “Fittingly named, huggi is the ultimate comfort food. You definitely feel like you’re being hugged when eating it.”
So huggi is a dish with variations all over India that you might also know as khichdi or pongal. Basically, it's rice and lentils cooked down until soft, until they kind of hug each other. With a gentle, savory flavor that will give your belly in your mind a hug too. In this episode, Chitra also tells us what it's been like to run her small business and even launch new products at the height of the pandemic, all while relocating her family from Brooklyn to Wisconsin to be able to better take care of her young sons, Alok and Ravi. But first, here's Chitra to tell us all about her huggi.
Chitra Agrawal: Many people know khichdi right, which is the rice and lentil dish, it's a one-pot dish. But I think a lot of people don't know that it's a dish that's made all throughout India and in my mother's home, where she's from in Bangalore, they call it huggi. So it's basically rice and yellow lentils, which are moong dal, like mung beans without the skin and split. That's the [specific] yellow lentil because there are so many different yellow lentils. What happens is that as the rice and the lentils are cooked together, they form this really creamy nice texture. And then you also add ghee or butter to make it really kind of almost rich. And then, in her version, you spice it with black pepper and cumin, as well as ginger and coconut. So this is a very South Indian version of this dish that has been made all throughout India, And it made for a festival called Sankranti, which is the beginning of the harvest season. It is a food that you would feed to a baby or a young child because you could spice it less to get them starting to eat food.
Kristen: And do Alok and Ravi like it?
Chitra: Well, I have to say Ravi has been a challenge with feeding, but Alok loves it. Any kind of rice and dal combo, he is all on board. I think it has a similar texture to macaroni and cheese. I compare this dish to risotto because you're cooking it and it's just melding together and becoming like this creamy texture.
Kristen: So in the end, the texture that you're looking for–it's not completely a mush, is it? It still has some distinct pieces of rice that are coated in this creamy lentil sauce.
Chitra: So it depends. Some people use broken rice or rice that actually does mesh very well with the lentils. In my recipe, I use basmati rice, which I feel like when it cooks, it still meshes together. And you could almost smash it down a little bit with your spoon when it's done cooking because you really wanted to all come together.
Kristen: I've made it, and it is so comforting. I totally put it in the category in my head of mac and cheese or mashed potatoes or other porridge things. Is that how you feel about it? Do you make it when you're wanting something soothing?
Chitra: Oh, yeah, definitely. It is complete comfort food. And the funny thing is, it's called huggi, and it's spelled H-U-G-G-I. And it's like this hug, basically, when you're eating it, it's super comforting.
Kristen: Are there any other riffs that you like to do with it, like other spice combinations or other types of rice or anything like that?
Chitra: Actually, my father is from North India, and he makes a different version of the dish. He spices it with coriander powder instead of black pepper. And he doesn't put ginger or coconut in it, but a lot of times he'll put vegetables in it. I got him an Instant Pot, so he is all about making everything in the Instant Pot. So he'll saute some of his vegetables and use cumin, asafoetida. Oh, and asafoetida is an important spice–we use that in the huggi recipe. And then coriander powder and he sometimes will add Garam Masala. Then he will add the rice and the lentils, and he soaks his lentils and rice before he makes it. And in this recipe that my mom has, you roast the lentils on the stove to get this nutty flavor and also stop with the stickiness. And I think it also helps to cook it faster too, or that's what my father said. So that's one version. You can add different vegetables to it–so he'll add carrots or peas or potatoes, which makes it super starchy. But my dad likes to put potatoes in everything.
Kristen: We're trying to do as much as we can to help keep people from feeling like they need to run out to three different grocery stores to find every ingredient if things are not on the shelves. So are there any substitutions that come to mind that would be handy to know about for this recipe?
Chitra: So I use Basmati [rice]. I would just try with any rice, and also I've tried it with half quinoa, half rice. So if people are trying to eat kind of less starch, that could be an option as well.
Kristen: That seems super handy too. You know when you think you have enough of a certain grain and then you get there and you actually only have a half cup and you need a cup. And you have to piece it together from lots of ends of bags of grains. That's really handy to know.
Chitra: Even my aunts, some of them have started using less rice in some of their recipes. In the Indian population, diabetes is a big deal because people eat so much rice. So they're trying to cut back on that. So I know for a fact that there are definitely some huggi being made with part rice part quinoa.
Kristen: I do love how forgiving that is. Part of what attracted me to this rescue, besides your description of how comforting it is, was the fact that cooking rice can be stressful for a lot of people. There's always this fear that if you're steaming rice, that you're going to accidentally boil it too hard and it’s going to break down. Or there will be too much water or too little water. And like the fact that you don't have to worry about the texture being just right and the amounts being just right and that that's the point. It is really lovely and really very welcoming. I know you mentioned in the recipe that if you're reheating these as leftovers, it's good to add some liquid. I'm wondering if you've ever done anything else with them? And the reason I ask is that we had some leftovers and my husband, whose main trick is to just fry everything, asked, why don't we crisp it up in a pan? Have you ever tried doing that?
Chitra: I haven't, but it sounds good.
Kristen: Well, we had stored it in a tall deli container and just kind of slid it out. And it kept the shape. We just literally sliced it like you would polenta and crisped up in a pan. It was really tasty. It got really crispy on the edges.
Chitra: I love that idea. I would be into that.
Kristen: (voiceover) This is the Genius Recipe Tapes. We'll be right back.
Kristen: I have some of your Achaar here, I have the Roasted Garlic. So when I've been making [the huggi’, I've been having it with that. And it's so delicious. Could you just tell people who are watching and listening more about Brooklyn Delhi?
Chitra: My company is Brooklyn Delhi, and I make achaar, which is a spicy Indian condiment made from different fruits and vegetables. And recently we also added a line of Simmer Sauces, and we also make kind of these hybrid condiments Curry Ketchup and Curry Mustard. Basically, all the recipes come out of our home kitchen. I develop the recipes and my husband designs all the labels. And then we put it out there.
Kristen: How is the production going now, with everything that's going on?
Chitra: It was pretty crazy because we were in the middle of a launch. So that was a little bit stressful. We kind of had geared up for it, but it was slowly making its way onto the shelves just because there were fewer workers. It was just kind of craziness just for them to keep stuff on the shelf. So having new stuff come in was a little bit crazy. And I think in general, people were not eating out as much. So they were going to the store and they were buying a lot of products like ours because they wanted to get that same experience at home. And so we had to really get organized as far as operations go because we had our biggest orders that we've ever had before.
Kristen: Was this before or after you had to move out to Wisconsin too?
Chitra: It was kind of during the same time, So we were ramping up, and then we ended up leaving because of Ravi. And thankfully I had hired somebody to help me on that side. So she and I worked on this together and it was doable.
Kristen:Good. And things that kind of settled into a new manageable rhythm now?
Chitra:Yeah, definitely.
Kristen:I'm just so in awe of everything that you are doing. And it reminds me of the last time I saw you, which was at your launch party for some of the simmer sauces. You were like days away from having your second child.
Chitra:Yeah.
Kristen: That dinner was for probably a few dozen people, right? It was a pretty big event.
Chitra: Well, I had a lot of people helping me, so that was key. Back in the day, I used to do tons of those pop-up dinners and it would be like me, and I would maybe get Ben to help me. And so that was huge to have people that were helping me because I could sit down and not really worry about everything.
Kristen: This was the first time that I left the house at night after having my baby. She was almost six months old at that point, and I just was like, this is so wild. Like, she was asleep, so it didn't really matter, but still, just the fact that I was out of the house. And then I didn't even realize that you were pregnant until I got there. And I was just absolutely impressed. I felt like I had just been through the wringer with everything with the pregnancy and the baby and everything. And then to see you doing this thing that I don't think I could have done even with no children in the picture.
Chitra: it's crazy. But I'm like, when am I gonna do one now?!
Kristen:Well, in the meantime, we have your products in all these different places, and we have your cookbook.
Chitra: Oh, yes. So Vibrant India is a cookbook of all South Indian recipes that are based in my family's food traditions from Bangalore, specifically my mother's family. It is all vegetarian, a lot of it is actually vegan. It really focuses on seasonal produce and grains. And it's my ode to my mom and Bangalore. It really tells the story of how a lot of the recipes that are in the book, I took from learning my family's traditional cooking techniques that then applied them to local vegetables and fruits. And tells a lot of the backstories of the random cooking classes and pop-up dinners that I was doing in Brooklyn, too.
Kristen: And this recipe is in it. This one doesn't have as much of the seasonal produce, but that makes it especially handy right at the second when we're like cooking so much out of the pantry. And of course, if we can access some other seasonal vegetables, then that's great and it sounds like they could be added right in. But it's really nice to have a base that is things that you can pull out of the pantry and rice cabinet.
Chitra: Thank you.
Kristen: And now here are more comfort foods to hug close from our listeners.
Listener Stephanie: Hi, my name is Stephanie, I’m from New Jersey, and one of my comfort foods right now is soupy rice. Which is kind of reminiscent of rice porridge that we would have on weekends as a kid, but this version is much faster. And I can still add as few or as many toppings as I please, I just have to be able to boil some water.
Listener Landy: My name is Landy Army from Oakland, California, and when I think of comfort food, what immediately comes to mind is sinigang. Sinigang is a dish that is ubiquitous to Filipino households, yet, I would argue, is uniquely prepared by each family. My mom would start making sinigang by searing beef, spare ribs, and then simmering until the meat is tender and falls off the bone. Next, broccoli, spinach, green beans, whole jalapenos, and, really, whatever vegetables you had available were layered in. Then you ladle it over rice and season with fish sauce to your liking. And just like each sinigang recipe is unique to each family, each person's bowl is unique to them. I prefer a higher rice to broth ratio, but that's just me. Sinigang is as delicious as it is nostalgic. It is a comforting connection to my ancestors and certainly a dish I just love making for others.
Listener Christina: Hi, I'm Christina from Norway. My go-to comfort food is pasta puttanesca. I always have the ingredients at home, so it's really quick and easy to make it. It takes about 15 minutes, and you have this wonderful pasta dish. And who doesn't get comfort from pasta? But it also has a freshness and this deep umami taste that you get from the tomatoes, olives, anchovies, capers, and parsley. It's just a blend of flavors that go so well together and leave you satisfied. And just with a familiar feeling.
Kristen: (voiceover) Thanks for listening and for sending in your stories. Our show was put together by Coral Lee, Emily Hanhan, and me, Kristen Miglore. I would also love to hear about your comfort food, whether it's a proper dinner or just pouring Magic Shell directly into the tub of raspberry sorbet, which got me through a lot of tough times in junior high, I have to say. Email it to me at genius@food52.com or tag me on Instagram at miglorious. And if you like The Genius Recipe Tapes, please do take a minute to rate and review us. It really helps. See you next time.