Raita is an Indian dish made with yogurt, spice powders, herbs & veggies like onions, cucumbers & carrots. Indian raita is usually accompanied with biryani, pulao or kababs.
Most often it is made with fresh veggies of choice, mild spice powders like cumin and herbs like coriander leaves & mint leaves. There are also some varieties made using cooked veggies and even fruits.
A raita is generally made to tone down the heat of the spicy foods like biryani and kebabs. Since yogurt is cooling, it helps to balance the heat from meat and spicy foods.
Also veggies like onion, tomato, cucumber, leafy greens like mint and coriander are cooling to the body. They also help to digest a heavy meal.
How to make a best raita?
To make a good raita use full fat, thick, fresh & nicely set yogurt/ curd. If you are new to making homemade curd, you can check this post on how to make curd at home. Some raita are made with hung curd or greek yogurt, you can refer this post to make hung curd at home.
Biryani and veg pulao are often made at home, we telugu speaking folks eat lot of spicy and hot food at every meal. We make raita often not only for biryani & pulao but also for plain rice with non-veg curries like chicken curry & mutton curry.
Here are some of the most commonly made raita recipes. Most of these are my own and go very well for our taste. You can also make your own adjustments.
Most of these recipes serve 3 people or 2 grown ups + 2 kids. If making these for kids as well, make the raita without chili. Set the kids portion aside, then add the chopped chilies to the rest.
2.Boondi raita recipe
Boondi raita is one of the fancy dishes mostly served in restaurants. Bundi or boondi is a crisp fried snack made with gram flour. You can buy it from Indian grocery stores. For this recipe we need boondi that is not spiced.
boondi raita
Ingredients
1 ¼ cup fresh curd / yogurt
¾ to 1 cup boondi
Salt as needed (boondi is salted so use very little)
¼ to ½ tsp roasted cumin powder
2 pinches of red chili powder for garnish
1 tbsp coriander leaves
kabab raita
Ingredients
1 cup thick fresh curd / dahi
2 to 3 deseeded green chili
1 cup loosely measured fresh pudina / mint leaves
¼ cup coriander leaves (optional)
2 tsps chopped onion (optional)
1 small garlic clove
¼ tsp grated ginger (optional)
½ tsp roasted cumin/ jeera
¼ to ½ tsp. sugar
salt as needed
How to make mint raita recipe for kebab
1. Wash mint & coriander in lot of water. Drain them very well in a colander.
2. Dry roast 1 tsp cumin until aromatic and cool it. Powder it in a blender jar.
3. Add 1 tbsp of curd, coriander, sugar,mint, salt, ginger, garlic, onions (optional) and chili to the blender jar.
4. Blend them all well. Add it to whisked curd. Stir well.
Serve with kababs like Chicken kebab, Soya seekh kabab, Vegetarian Hara bhara kabab, Grilled tandoori chicken, Reshmi / malai kabab, Mixed veg cutlet and chicken cutlet.
5.Cucumber raita
Cucumber raita
Ingredients
1 cup chopped cucumber
1 cup curd (adjust as needed to get the desired consistency)
Salt as needed
½ tsp roasted cumin powder
pinch of pepper powder (optional)
few mint leaves or coriander leaves chopped finely(optional)
1 green chili seeded and chopped
1 tsp fresh ginger juice (optional)
1. Wash and peel cucumber. Deseed and Chop to small bites.
2. Add them to a bowl along with yogurt, salt and cumin powder. If using pepper powder and mint coriander leaves add them as well. Mix everything well. To make ginger juice, grate ginger, add it to a tea strainer and press, juice drips through the strainer. Add just one 1 tsp of the juice.
3. Garnish with pepper and cumin powder.
onion raita
Ingredients
1 ¼ cup yogurt (use ¼ cup more if needed)
½ cup onions roughly chopped
¼ cup deseeded tomatoes chopped (optional)
3 green chilies deseeded and chopped
Salt as required
12 to 15 mint leaves / pudina
½ to 1 inch ginger (adjust the quantity to suit your taste)
½ tsp roasted cumin powder/ jeera powder (optional)
Instructions
1. Whisk curd with salt until smooth.
2. Crush ginger and mint leaves together very well. You can also do it in a mini jar. Add 2 tbsps water to this mixture and filter it through a coffee filter/ strainer to yogurt. Press down the mint and ginger to bring out the flavors completely.
3. Add green chilli, onions and tomatoes. Garnish with mint or cumin powder.
Whisk the curd to smooth with salt, chili powder and cumin powder. Add the pomegranate seeds and serve. This goes well with pulao and biryani that are not much hot (from chilies) as this tastes slightly hot.
12.Masala raita
Ingredients
1 cup fresh curd/ yogurt
¼ to ½ tsp cumin/ jeera powder
¼ tsp pepper powder (optional)
salt to taste
¼ to ½ tsp chaat masala
¼ tsp red chili powder
1 tsp sugar
2 tbsp cilantro finely chopped
Method
Whisk curd with all the ingredients except red chili powder. Garnish with chili powder and serve chilled.