Andhra Pachadi

5 min readNov 27, 2023

Beerakaya Tomato

This is from the Nagarjuna restaurant’s meals. It is coarsely ground pachadi.
In a kadai, add 2 ladles oil, add 3 tsps urad dal, some methi seeds and fry until they turn light brown. Now add 1 tsp mustard seeds and let them splutter.
Add chopped green chillies, red chillies, and hing and fry. The spice should be on the higher side. Take this into a mixer. Add some tamarind and coarsely grind them and keep aside.
In the same kadai, there would be left over oil. Add the ridge gourd pieces, salt and turmeric and cook on medium low flame with a covered lid. The ridge gourd starts leaving water. When the vegetable is semi cooked take it out without the water and coarsely grind it and keep it aside.
In the kadai that has the residual water from the ridge gourd, add chopped tomatoes. The tomatoes quantity should be the same as the ridge gourd. Add turmeric and salt to this too and cook with covered lid until it becomes soft and leaves oil. It should be like something ground with a mortar pestle.
Now mix the ground ridge gourd and the ground tadka to the tomatoes and adjust the salt.

In a kadai, add 1.5 ladles of oil, a fist full of coriander seeds, 1 spoon jeera, 4 -5 garlic pods, 4–5 green chillies, 4–5 red chillies, 1 spoon chana dal, and 1 spoon urad dal and fry well. Add goose berry size tamarind and fry again. Transfer all this to a mixer and grind.
In the same kadai add finely chopped carrot pieces (3 medium sized carrots), salt and cook until the carrot is soft. Add 2 medium sized tomatoes and fry until the tomatoes are also soft.
Transfer the carrot and tomato pieces to the mixer that has the ground powder from step 1 and grind into a smooth paste. This is NOT a coarse pachadi. So use the normal mixer option. Add at the most 1 spoon of water only if needed.
In the kadai, add oil, 1/4 spoon methi, 1/2 spoon mustard seeds, hing, and curry leaves and wait until the mustard pops. Mix with the ground pachadi.

In a kadai, add oil. Add red chillies, urad dal, chana dal, some cumin and fry.
Add half of the green chillies and fry.
Add the cut tindora and fry for a bit. Add salt and cook with closed lid.
Once the tindora turns slightly soft, add garlic pods and tamarind. Cook until the tamarind sweats.
Transfer to a mixer. Add some more green chillies, 1 TSP ground nuts and grind coarsely. Do not add too many groundnuts. Adjust the salt, heat and sourness by adding salt or green chillies or tamarind.
For tadka, add oil, mustard, methi, hing, curry leaves. Add this to the ground pachadi.

Peel the cucumber. Cut in half. Taste the seeds and the cucumber separately. Make sure there is no bitterness. Discard the seeds if only they are bitter. Be very careful here. All the seeds have to be discarded and the cucumber has to be washed properly after that.
About 15% of the cucumber, cut into small pieces. Rest of it chop roughly.
In a kadai, heat oil, add 3tsp of urad dal, 1/4 tsp methi and fry until brown.
Add 1.5 tsp of mustard and let it splutter.
Add 5 or 6 green chillies (for a medium sized cucumber), 3 red chillies, hing and fry. After the green chillies are properly fried with a transparent layer on top, add the contents to a mixer jar. If the cucumber seeds are there add them. Add a small gooseberry sized tamarind and grind.
Add the roughly chopped cucumber to the kadai and add turmeric. Cook only for a minute and transfer the pieces to the mixer which already has the ground spices, add salt and grind coarsely. This should already taste good.
In the kadai, add 2tsp urad dal and saute. Take the contents of the mixer into a bowl, add the sauteed urad dal and the thinly chopped cucumber pieces and mix with a spoon.

In a kadai, add oil, mustard, tamarind, green chillies, red chillies, garlic and fry well. Add cut brinjal and salt and cook until brinjal turns soft. Pulse in the mxer. Do not grind too smooth.
Adjust the taste. Now add coarsely chopped cucumber and pulse a couple of times. The cucumber should still be in piece form.

In a kadai, heat oil and add 2tsp chana dal, 2 TSP urad dal, and 1 TSP cumin seeds, red chillies and roast until light brown.
Add roughly chopped cabbage on top of the dals and fry until cabbage is semi cooked. You will know because at this point you will start smelling the cabbage.
To the same pan add some tamarind, garlic pods and half of the slit green chillies and fry until the tamarind slightly sweats.
Transfer to a mixer and add salt, remaining green chillies and 1 TSP roasted peanuts and grind coarsely. Check the spices. Don’t add too many peanuts as it becomes too over powering.
For the tadka, add oil, curry leaves, methi seeds and mustard seeds. Wait till they splutter and mix with the chutney.

Take equal quantities of raw mango and coconut pieces. This can be adjusted based on the sourness of the mangoes. Add raw green chillies, garlic and grind together.
I did one whip in the mixer for the coconut and mango pieces. Then took the paste, used the mortar pestle to mix the garlic and chillies. Add salt to taste
In the tadka add fresh curry leaves, hing, mustard seeds and jeera.

In the mixer add coconut pieces, roasted ground nuts, chopped ginger and green chillies, and salt. Ground nuts should be 25 to 30% of the coconut. Ground nut can be replaced with chutney chana dal.
Grind smooth. In a kadai, heat oil, add red chillies, jeera, mustard, hind and curry leaves and fry.
Mix the tadka with the ground chutney and add water if needed. The chutney should flow easily from a spoon.