Himachali Cuisine: Madra a delicacy of Chamba

When talking about himachali cuisines Madra of Chamba is famous for being a real treat to your taste buds. Every person has a somewhat different style of cooking it. I’ll share with you my mom’s recipe. She says, if your yoghurt curdles then your Madra is a disaster. To avoid that you have to massage your arms and keep stirring the yoghurt well.

Without saying much, try out this delicious himachali cuisine yourself.

Ingredients:

Garbanzo Beans (Kabuli Chana) or Red Kidney Beans (Rajmah) or Raung – 2 bowls
Beated Youghurt – 4 bowls
Ghee – 1 bowl (not refined oil)

Masala:
Aniseed – 1 teaspoon
Cardamom Black – 2 pieces
Cardamom Green – 2 pieces
Cinnamon – 1 small piece
Bay Leaf Indian – 1 leaf
Turmeric Powder
Salt
Sugar

Dry Fruits:
Cashews
Almonds
Grated Coconut
Raisin

Method:

Soak Garbanzo Beans/ Kidney beans/ Raung overnight in water. Preferably use Garbanzo Beans as they taste best in Madra than any other pulses. Next day boil beans in a pressure cooker for about half-an-hour by adding salt to taste in it.

By the time pressure cools down make preparations for curry/gravy: Add ghee into a thick cooking utensil and heat till it melts. Add aniseed, black cardamom, green cardamom, cinnamon and bay leaf into hot ghee. When turned into golden color add turmeric powder and after 5 seconds add beated yoghurt to it. Briskly stir it till curd leaves oil. Brisk stirring is the most important step, if you don’t do that then yoghurt curdles and spoils the taste of your cuisine.

After that add sieved boiled beans, salt, sugar, cashews, almonds, grated coconut and raisin to the curry; cook for about 15 minuntes. If you don’t wish to add sugar you can avoid it. Serve hot with rice or chappaties.

Disha Singh Sharma

Raised in Shimla and originally from Mandi district, Disha wears many caps which includes being part of a lead team of a fast growing IT company based out of Chandigarh. Earlier Disha was associated with My Himachal and visits Shimla regularly.