Mati Mahor Khar (Black Gram Khar)

A traditional Assamese platter is incomplete without a khar (alkali) dish, normally prepared with soda  or  water distilled from smoked/burnt banana peel. Popular khar dishes include papaya khar, bottle gourd khar, cucumber khar, among others. One more khar dish relished by the kharkhowas is mati mahor khar (black gram lentil khar).

How to get your Khar ingredient: Sun-dry for few days the peels from seeded-bananas (bhim kal in Assamese) until they turn grey/black. Now take a sun-dried banana peel and burn it on your gas oven. Then soak the burnt peel in potable water overnight. Next morning, as the water turns tea-like and the ashes gather at the bottom, filter the water in a separate vessel. One or one-and-a-half cup is enough for your preparation

Ingredients:

• About 1 or 1/12 cup khar water (see above to prepare this water) 
• About 250 gm black lentils
• 1/2 medium sized onion (finely chopped)
• 5-6 green chillis
• 5-6 pods of garlic
• two teaspoon mustard oil
• Coriander leaves
• 5 spices
• Salt to taste

Method: Soak the black grams overnight.Then wash well to remove the skin, although there are a lot of people out there who prepare without removing the skin. Take the green chillis, garlic pods and corinader leaves and crush with a crusher. Heat one or two teaspoon oil in a pressurre cooker, add  five spices, followed by the garlic-chilli-coriander paste. Add onion and fry; the aroma that it gives out is simply difficult to resist.Then add the lentils and fry for some time before adding the khar. Drop one or two green chillis if you prefer it hot! Pressure cook for 4-5 whistles (or as your pressure cooker demands). Before serving, add one teaspoon of mustard oil to it because it accentuates the taste of the khar dish.  

Health quotient: Khar is said to cleanse your stomach.