Could sabudana khichdi be the next crossover favourite?

The dish has been making waves internationally ever since the American chef and writer Samin Nosrat — of Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat — tried it out at home and posted a recipe online.

If you didn’t approve of America turning our doodh-haldi into a turmeric latte, you’re not going to like what’s coming. In August, Samin Nosrat (whose bestseller Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat was also turned into a Netflix show in 2018) wrote an unusual column in The New York Times, gushing about having discovered sabudana khichdi.

Hrishikesh Hirway, her co-host on the made-in-quarantine podcast Home Cooking, had sent across his mother’s recipe. Nosrat, after a disastrous first attempt, watched several demo videos and eventually figured out how to soak and cook it just right. The result, she writes, “smelled so good I couldn’t wait to start eating, so I stood at the kitchen counter, spooning it into my mouth”. Her column offered a microwave-adapted recipe too.

When she finally got it right, it “smelled so good I couldn’t wait to start eating, so I stood at the kitchen counter, spooning it into my mouth,” Nosrat said.

Sabudana khichdi is helpfully described as a Maharashtrian Tapioca Pilaf. On the NYT’s cooking page, the dish is a runaway success. Among the 120 comments are helpful tips from Indian and Indian-origin readers about soaking times, ingredient substitutions and allergy warnings.

Brace yourself, it’s starting already.

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