Kachumar – Diced Desi Salad

It’s embarrassing how long it’s been since my last post. I don’t have an excuse. All I can say is that 2022 has been a beautiful year. I travelled, I cooked, I got every vaccine invented to date and I survived COVID. I thank my Creator for these, and many more bounties. As a New Year begins, and life seems both full and fleeting, I’m back with a family favourite, Kachumar. 

Kachumar will surprise you. It looks ordinary. On the face of it, the salad is but an assortment of diced produce in a bowl.  Take a spoonful, and you’ll realize there’s not only a wealth of juicy, crunchy flavours, but also, this salad packs a pretty neat nutritional punch. Add Kachumar to your regular meals and, like me, you may find it beats lying prone for an hour with a mud mask to add a glow to your face. Yes, it’s a real thirst quencher for your body. 

Okay, so what goes into a Kachumar? I pick ingredients that have a diversity of textures, colours, and flavours, and work well together. For instance, my go-to Kachumar consists of a combination of cucumber, sweet peppers, red radishes, red onions, and extra firm tomatoes, (otherwise when you dice them, they’ll go all teary eyed and release Niagara Falls on you). I’m not fond of carrots in salads as a rule, because they don’t pick up flavours that well and also, are a pain to slice and dice. I often add avocado, or fresh pineapple when available at a price that doesn’t involve selling body parts, and either works really well, but these are optional. I do love spring onions, and (as an indulgence because everything in the salad is so crunchy, juicy fresh), I will throw in some sweet pickled onions from a jar; and of course, a finely diced hot green chilli or two, to give it some South Asian heat.

So how do you make it? You slice and dice. Takes some time, of course, but let me share some tips with you: To make a good Kachumar you need a sharp knife, a solid cutting board, and a desire to give your produce a clean death. So hold your veggies firmly, but don’t bruise them with your fingers or, heaven forbid, with a blunt edged knife. It’s Ripper time, without the malevolence, if you know what I mean. I find the steady rhythm of chopping, slicing, and dicing to be soothing. Also, while I dice with commitment, I don’t rush the process. Slow and steady is the way to go. As you may recall, the hare had speed but lost the race. 

Size does matter. Normally, one tries for a daintily sized Kachumar, by which I mean that you need to dice the suckers into about 2 centimetres or ½ inch rectangular pieces. What you’re aiming for are manageable bites that one can pick up with a fork, and are roughly, but not exactly equal. Trust me, you don’t have to sweat over getting precisely identical portions. Just aim for overall harmony. 

How do you dress this salad? Let me tell you how I stumbled upon a wildly delicious recipe for a dressing. I was going to make a Lime Cilantro Vinaigrette Dressing (recipe below) but I ran out of limes. The wretches had somehow sneaked out of the grocery bag into the trunk of my car, but at the time, I thought I’d forgotten to buy them and I was in a real pickle. My guests were about to arrive. I’d chopped and diced the Kachumar ingredients patiently, and there I was, in a state of panic, with not one lime or lemon in sight. No lime juice in a bottle that sometimes smells like camphor (but that’s another story) in my refrigerator either. My panicky Mango Pickle Dressing was the result of this experience. Try it. Without the panic of course. I assure you, this will be a hot and spicy hit like no other diced salad you’ve dressed, or served.

A spicy South Asian dressing is but one in a list of options. A Kachumar can be dressed to be sweet, tangy, spicy, salty, or a combination of the foregoing. I often go with a Lime Cilantro Vinaigrette with sweet ‘n sour, and tangy undertones, the latter emanating from the Mustard Oil in it. This dressing has an uplifting, cleansing effect on the palate, and goes well with a rich main course. Or, I mix olive oil, lime juice, and season it with mint, paprika and a hint of garlic. Sometimes, I substitute cilantro with parsley, (did you know that some folk are genetically averse to cilantro? I learned about it recently), and add lime juice, olive oil and black pepper. Once, I added fresh orange segments to the salad, and honey instead of sugar in the vinaigrette — it was pretty nice, even if I say so myself. Purists might shriek, but a bottled dressing, like Balsamic Vinegar, works really well too — just add lime juice and brown or white sugar to it. As with other salads, it’s enjoyable to experiment with different flavours and textures. 

How do you serve Kachumar? Let me count the ways. I’ve had it with a variety of cuisines, including a burger and fries, grilled fish, and tuna out of a can; and with a variety of South Asian main dishes. Kachumar goes incredibly well with protein-rich main courses, and it’s served traditionally as an accompaniment to rich, festive food, such as Biryani, Pulao, Kebabs, and it has its place in our everyday meals as well. I like it with chawal-daal, rice and lentils, especially with my Mango Pickle Dressing. I love it in a wrap too: leftover chicken curry, or qeema, rolled into a paratha, seasoned with crunchy, juicy Kachumar bits.

Here’s hoping you enjoy making Kachumar just as much as you enjoy eating it. Have a bountiful 2023!

DID YOU KNOW THAT..

• Salads are as ancient as the Greeks and the Romans? Or that the word salad comes from the Latin word sal, for salt, an ingredient that the Romans did not hesitate to partake of, quite liberally. Not surprising that the average life expectancy of a Roman was 25 years.
• Kachumar, also called Kachumbar, is closely related to Kachumbari, made mainly with tomatoes, onion and chillies, originally from western India; also  popular in Kenya, Uganda, around the African Great Lakes and in the Caribbean. 
• Salsa, a hugely popular condiment now, is made with tomatoes and chillies, and has been traced back some 5000 years to the Aztec Empire in South and Central America. It has interesting similarities with Kachumar. 
• Tomatoes and chillies came to South Asia in the 16th century when the Portuguese went looking for trouble across the seas, landing in Goa, in western India, which they colonized and largely exploited – but where they also picked up peculiar habits, such as taking a bath every day, and even changing their undergarments on a regular basis. I am not making this up!

Photo Credit

All Photos unless otherwise noted by: Almas Zakiuddin SOME RIGHTS RESERVED