Northeast Indian
Khar (Raw Papaya & Lentil Khar)
Khar (Raw Papaya & Lentil Khar) is Northeast Indian home cooking, eaten at lunch and dinner. On the plate it is the dish at the centre and the cooked vegetable. Below is what usually sits beside it, what it does and does not contain, and what else to cook once you have made it.
Ingredients
- 2 cups raw papaya
- 1/4 cup split red lentils
- 1 tbsp mustard oil
- 1/4 tsp baking soda
- 1 green chili
- 1.5 cups water
- 1/2 tsp salt
How to cook it
- Peel the raw papaya and cut it into small cubes.
- Heat the mustard oil in a pot and drop in the papaya, lentils, and slit green chili, stirring for a couple of minutes.
- Dissolve the baking soda in the water, the traditional home substitute for hard-to-find kolakhar alkali, and pour it in along with the salt.
- Bring to a simmer, then cover and cook until the papaya turns soft and the lentils break down, about 18 minutes.
- Mash a little with the back of the spoon to thicken and serve warm, traditionally as the first dish of the meal.
Serve it with
A Northeast Indian dinner is a plate rather than a single dish. These are the courses that normally sit beside Khar (Raw Papaya & Lentil Khar), read from the same composition Dinejot builds a real meal from.
-
The protein alongside
-
What it is eaten with
A course labelled with another kitchen's name comes from a cuisine in the same family, which is where this plate usually borrows it from.
Safe at your table
Dinejot tracks ten allergens and tags every one of them by hand. Khar (Raw Papaya & Lentil Khar) carries none of them. That is a checked answer rather than an ingredient list nobody read.
| Allergen | In this dish | Cook this instead |
|---|---|---|
| Peanuts | No | |
| Tree nuts | No | |
| Dairy | No | |
| Gluten | No | |
| Shellfish | No | |
| Eggs | No | |
| Soy | No | |
| Fish | No | |
| Sesame | No | |
| Coconut | No |
These tags are set by a person rather than inferred from an ingredient list, and they describe the recipe as written here. Read the labels on whatever you actually buy.
What it brings to the plate
Bands, not numbers. Dinejot does not weigh anybody's food, so it says light, moderate or hearty and stops there. This dish was read and set by hand.
- Calorie band
- Light
- Protein
- Low
- Food groups it covers
- Vegetables and Pulses
- How this was set
- Hand audited
When to cook it
Khar (Raw Papaya & Lentil Khar) takes about 30 minutes from a cold stove to the table, and the cooking itself is a fair bit of work. It is eaten at lunch and dinner. Nothing in the calendar rules it out, so it is a year round dish.
Watch someone make it
Nothing loads from YouTube until you press play. Until then this is one still image, which is why the page opens as quickly as it does.
More to cook
Cooked from the same things
Other dishes built on papaya and lentil.
From the same kitchens
More cooking from Northeast India.
Does the same job on the plate
Swap any of these in when you want a meal the same shape.
Cook this with your whole family
Dinejot plans breakfast, lunch and dinner as whole plates, built around the cooking you call home and filtered for the allergies at your table.
Meal suggestions support your goals. They are not medical advice. Please ask your doctor about your family's health needs.