Among the fond memories of my childhood are the Khatkhatyacha bet (vegetable stew special) and rasacha bet (sugarcane juice special). The most prominent ingredient in both was the whole family coming together.

Khatkhata is a mixed vegetable stew. At my mother’s place it was an important dish for Anant Chaturdashi made with 21 vegetables. We did not celebrate Ganesh festival so khatkhata was made on a whim.  Once it was decided to make khatkhata, a sunday trip to Marketyard was planned. In addition to the regular culprits of the veggie world potato, radish, eggplant we also needed green bananas, a variety of fresh beans – cluster beans, string beans, fava beans, VaalPaapdi (lablab), fresh groundnut, and most importantly ears of corn. The beans were bought as a mix as altogether we needed less than a quarter kg of each.

Back home all of us sat down to prepare the veggies for the stew. My mother would take care of cutting the big ones: potato, corn etc. while we helped with deveining, shelling, or breaking the beans in big pieces.

An extended family Khatkhat event at maternal grandmother’s house.

The pieces went in one by one as per the time needed to cook. It is one of the simplest recipes with very few spices that highlights the taste of each and every produce item going in, at the same time creating this most layered soupy goodness. Highlight of the event was sucking on the corn on the cob. The day we had khatkhata there was not much else cooked except rice and may be chapati. I love it the most with rice.

In US this dish was the epitome of luxury and comfort food on a chilly wintery sunday. We made it with whatever vegetables we could find as far as we could get our hands on the ear of corn.    

Khatkhat bowl on a cold wintery day