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The first time I came across curd chillies was at a hole-in-the-wall Kerala restaurant in Mumbai which has gone on to be one of my all-time favourite places. I ordered a thali – or rather, a sadya as it's properly called – and as they started loading up my banana leaf platter I spied an addition I’d never tried before. Red chillies. Dry and wrinkled as a newborn bird. I approached them with some suspicion since they had an odd white cast over them which looked uncomfortably like mould. But after the first bite, my life was changed forever. A delicious balance of salt and spice spurred an instant addiction, and now I can’t fully enjoy an Indian meal without them.
The concept of the Curd Chilli – as I later discovered they were called – comes to us from South India where it’s used as a condiment, often in place of a regular pickle. As the name suggests, the two main components here are chillies and curd. There aren’t any specific types of chillies preferred but spicy green chillies are the standard and traditionally they’re soaked in curd and then dried in the sun. Part of the beauty of these little flavour bombs is that there is no shortcut to their perfection. To get the desired result, you have to surrender yourself to the whims of the Indian sun and wait until its accomplished its mission.
Thanks to the wonders of the internet, procuring Curd Chillies is just a click away, or you could take a stroll down the aisles of your city’s answer to a Kerala Shop if you’re feeling more adventurous. But if like me and you like to make your life more difficult by chasing a sense of misplaced culinary integrity, try the recipe below to make it at home.
Ingredients:
- 250 grams of green chillies
- 1 cup yoghurt
- 1 tablespoon fenugreek seeds
- Salt to taste
Method:
- Rinse the chillies thoroughly under running water and dry them with a kitchen towel.
- Dry roast the fenugreek seeds until aromatic and golden before grinding them into a fine powder.
- In a bowl, take curd, fenugreek powder and salt. Set aside
- Slit the chilli making sure they don’t break apart
- Put the crud mixture into the slit chilli
- Let the chillies soak in the curd mixture. Let it sit overnight
- The next morning, spread the chillies on a steel plate and let it dry under the sun. Store the remaining curd mixture in the refrigerator
- In the evening, take the chillies from the plate and put them into the curd mixture. Let it sit on the counter overnight
- The next morning, again take the chillies out and dry them in the sun as mentioned above
- Repeat this process for 2-3 days until all the curd is absorbed
- After that, sundry the chillies until they are completely dry (another 3-4 days)
- Store in an airtight container. Curd chilli is ready to use
