[Chad Hamilton]

This particular recipe is stolen from Micheal Tierra. I use his as an example because of it's simplicity to prepare...and understand.
Kichari is meant to balance. Which is why you must be particular with the ingredients.
Some in the TCM circle who understand their bodies and functions to a high degree can alter this recipe by adding "warming" or "cooling" ingredients to balance any deficiency they may have. I mention this because unless you know a TCM practitioner or are on another level mentally, (as I am) you should not change the recipe to suit your "personal taste".

I typically eat this once a day.
I prepare twice as much as the recipe says and I also use 1/2 times more water than this recipe calls for. I don't like mine so thick.
You have to make sure it cooks slow, it takes me about an hour and ten minutes.
Barely a simmer.

1 cup whole mung beans
2 cups brown rice
4 1/4 cups cold water

Put these three ingredients into a pot, put the lid on until it boils, then lower the temperature to Low and cook for 45 minutes.

When the rice/mung beans are about ten minutes away from being ready put the following ingredients into a frying pan with the heat on low for ten minutes or so...just to fuse all the spices...

1-2 tbsp clarified butter
3/4 tsp sea salt or rock salt
1 tbsp ground cumin (freshly ground makes a huge difference)
1 tbsp ground coriander (freshly ground makes a huge difference)
1 tbsp turmeric

Pour into pot of rice/bean, fold together. Done.

Here's a little education I pulled: READ
The following is an excerpt from Michael Tierra's book,
The Way of Chinese Herbs


We have discussed the value of brown rice as the most balanced food because it supplies a well-balanced complex carbohydrate for sustained balanced energy. Mung beans are unique in that they supply the necessary amino acids, which, with the brown rice, help enrich the overall protein value. Another important and unique aspect of mung beans is that because they have a cool energy, they are detoxifying and help neutralize acids. Mung beans are even recommended as one of the substances to treat toxicity symptoms of aconite poisoning. Mung beans are therefore a proteinaceous, highly nutritious blood purifier. By neutralizing toxins throughout the body, they are able to calm the mind, relieve hypertension, clear the accumulation of excess cholesterol and other lipids from the veins and arteries of the body, and promote the healing of all diseases. Unlike fruit or vegetable fasts, which are also cooling but lack the denser nutrients, a diet high in mung beans, especially a kichari and mung bean diet, achieves a more balanced detoxification without aggravating any nutritional deficiences.

"This isn't food; this is medicine!" The combination of brown rice and mung beans in kichari represents a perfect combination of life-sustaining protein and carbohydrates. Secondly, the addition of whole rock salt supplies added trace minerals the body needs to properly use other nutrients. Third, but not least, the three essential spices, coriander, cumin, and turmeric, the basis of curry mixtures, each have unique therapeutic properties that aid digestion and prevent food and other stagnations from occuring. Traditional nutrition beliefs of both China and India seem to imply that it is the subtle combination of the five flavors, which activates each of the internal organic processes, and this may be more important even than the nutritional content of food. Let's look at these. Coriander and cumin seeds have warm, spicy energy and benefit the lungs and spleen for better assimilation and transformation of food into energy. Turmeric, with its bitter and spicy flavours, is well known in TCM for its liver-detoxifying and blood- and qi-circulating properties that help to prevent stagnation and relieve pain.


Any questions, google or ask me.