Kombdi Vade | Neena & Sangeeta

Growing up in Mumbai, in large extended families, the Sunday lunch was where you really learned about your family history, rituals, hopes and worries, stories, jokes, games, and personalities. The meal was pretty special – delicious, comforting, and made with love. Something that had been cooking all morning prepared by mom, aunts and some help from the kids too. A big part of our childhood was standing on stools in the kitchen as the older women cooked. So uncomplicated, simple comfort food with long lazy afternoons with relatives full of fun and laughter.

This perfect Sunday lunch recipe for Kombdi Rassa (chicken (or mutton) curry) is simple, but the results are sensational. This curry is best paired with my mami’s (aunt) Vade recipe. Vade are fried flat breads that are made with slightly fermented dough.

Kombdi Vade

First, for the Kombdi Rassa:

1. Marinate chicken (or mutton) in some yogurt, ginger garlic paste and saffron.
2. Dry roast cumin and coriander seed, red chilies, black pepper, cloves, black and green.
3. cardamom, dagad phool (stone flower/lichen) sesame seeds and poppy seeds.
4. Roast a piece of dry coconut on an open flame.
5. Then sauté onions till golden brown.
6. After cooling down, grind along with all the dry roasted masalas and coconut into a fine paste.
7. Make a tadka with mustard seeds, cumin seeds and green chilies.
8. Put the ground onion and masala paste and sauté for a minute.
9. Add the marinated chicken and mix well.
10. Add enough water to get the desired consistency of the curry.
11. Cover and cook.

My aunt would be the only one who would fry the perfect crowd pleaser Vade that would be finished as soon as they hit the plates! She would single handedly form them on her palm just like doughnuts and fry them. I’m so glad she shared this recipe with my mom and we all have it in our family.

Here’s how you make them:

1. With hot water, make the soft dough (bread like) mixing all the above ingredients. Keep in a warm place to ferment for 6-8 hours.
2. Flatten a small ball (golf ball size) on your greased palms. You could make them like doughnuts or like puris. Fry until golden brown and serve with the curry.

1. Traditional recipes take pride of place and evoke memories of childhood. So imprinted are these recipes that when I cook them today I don’t need a recipe.

Traditional recipes take pride of place and evoke memories of childhood. So imprinted are these recipes that when I cook them today I don’t need a recipe.

Watch this recipe here – Kombdi Vade

Spicy Musings is a joint effort of two sisters,  Neena and Sangeeta. Their Instagram journey started due to separation pangs. After living very close to each other in Los Angeles for 17 years, they were suddenly separated by thousands of kilometers when one of them had to move to Houston due to job transfer. When they lived nearby, they cooked together, ate together, experimented with recipes together and developed new, healthy recipes together. It was hard being far away from each other, so they started sharing pictures of what they cooked via messages. Family and friends who knew their love for cooking together wanted to see pictures of what they were up to in their individual kitchens, so they started an Instagram account so that anyone who knows them could see their food related pictures.

Since both of them work full time in challenging positions in the corporate world, they bring their sanity back by being in the kitchen after a long and hectic day.  Creating an artistic plate, one which is as appetizing as it is beautiful is their passion.

They like to cook and experiment with meals that preserve their family’s cooking methods, but tweaking and using judgment with the ingredients to make food “healthier”. In the process they have had dozens of disaster dishes, some winning recipes and a whole lot of nostalgic cooking! 

^{Translations and detailed descriptions are provided to give a better understanding of the story to people from different cultural backgrounds across the globe.}