Avakkaya - Tasty Andhra pickle demystified

Well, I wanted to make sure I told everyone that I made avakkaya at home all by myself, I definitely had a lot of help from BH and DD but all by myself means no experienced avakkaya maker supervision. Here is the story, last week, on my grocery shopping spree I found a bin of these small mangoes (not the regular big green ones you see in most Indian stores) but the same kind of mangoes we used to get in namma Bengaluru for avakkaya making. Now, I write a food blog and I find some mangoes which are even labelled 'Pickle mangoes', isn't that destiny screaming avakkaya? What does it matter if I already have avakkaya and maagaya brought from India, carefully vacuum packed to last me for another year :-). So, I went ahead and brought home about 10 mangoes all jazzed up to make the avakkaya and called my resident avakkaya expert and got the proportions and got a refresher on the procedure. Last Sunday, I made these beauties and after a couple of days of settling time, here I am with the pictures, proportions and procedure to make this famous avakkaya at home.

After I got married and when we lived in Bengaluru, I went to the Yashwantpur market - it is a wholesale/retail fresh produce market on the north side of Bengalure where vendors come with their produce ranging from fresh greens to veggies to meat and spread them on push carts, make shift stalls or even on the road. It is an experience to walk through these extremely noisy, somewhat unhygenic streets where you will also find some of the freshest of ingredients. My love for these fresh produce bazars in India started very early, I used to go with my father on his 2-wheeler and bring home 2 huge cloth bags full of produce before festivals or special occasions. Though the bazaars are makeshift and most of the vendors operate without licenses (?), these places run on loyalty and regular visits. If you are a frequent customer, you know the vendors by name(and vice versa) and the exact place of their stalls in the chaos and you have a certain negotiating power on the prices quoted. There are smart vendors who will always start high and let you in on a lower price reserved just for customers like you :-) while there are smart customers who threaten the vendors that they have already seen the prices in 4 other stalls and know where to go and have the price reduced :-). It works both ways (or it doesn't :-)).

So back to Yashwantpur market, I accompanied amma on an early morning in Summer to that same vendor she had been going for years, bought the mangoes and have him chop them into fours. Yes, this is necessary you see, because the mangoes for avakkaya are not really tender, they are green and firm but they need to have a solid middle part (called Tenka in Telugu) and a seed should have started forming. The pieces (or mukkalu) are pickled with this part for longer term storage and your kitchen knife is not very handy in cutting these mangoes open. So, amma would choose the mangoes, put them in a basket and tell the guy to cut them. He would use his medium sized axe and an wooden board and chop each mango into 4s and drop the pieces in to the basket. Back home, the pieces were thoroughly washed and wiped dry before the pickling process began. Since my grocery store doesn't carry an axe and will not chop the mangoes for me, I did them at home :-)

Avakkaya is easy to make if you have the right quality ingredients. And when preserved right, stays over a year. I usually put my pickles from India in the refrigerator as we don't consume a lot of them.

What do you need to make Avakkaya? 
10 medium sized firm, hard green mangoes (See notes)
3 cups red chili powder
2 cups salt (See notes)
3 cups mustard powder
3 cups oil (traditionally sesame oil is used for its fragrance, I used my regular sun flower oil)
2 Tsp fenugreek seeds

Utensils: 
Pickle making is all about ensuring the longevity of the pickles. To this end, make sure your hands, spoons, pans and pots are all completely dry without any trace of water.
Prepare a jaadi (porcelain containers with lids) if you have access to or use glass containers like I did - wash them and wipe dry. Let the container sit in Sun for 2-3 hours to remove any traces of water.

How do you make avakkaya? 

• Wash the mangoes thoroughly to remove any dirt on the skin. 
• Wipe them dry and make sure they are not damp. 
• Keep them on a wooden cutting board, and break them into two with a sharp knife. Now cut the halves into as many pieces based on your preference for size.
• Powder mustard in your blender/mixer into a fine powder. This is called Aava pindi.
• Take a dry, wide bowl, add salt, red chili powder, mustard powder and the fenugreek seeds and mix them well. 

• Add oil to the powders and mix it into a wet masala. 

• Now add the cut mango pieces - a handful at a time and coat the masala on each of the pieces. 
• Finish up by mixing it all homogeneously and let it stand for half hour. 

• Carefully scoop out the masala mixed mangoes into the prepared containers, close them and keep them aside to marinate flavors for 3 days before using. 

• When you open the containers after 3 days, you will notice oil floating on top of the pickle, this means that the proportions have worked well, if the pickle looks too dry, add some more oil and mix with a dry spoon. 

Notes: 

• Per amma, 1 Kg of mangoes, 3 cups each of red chili powder, salt and mustard powder. My 9 mangoes weighed a Kg and hence I have given the above proportion but reduced salt as I used table salt. 
• Choose mangoes that are green and hard - your best bet to have a hard inner core (or tenka), some of my 9 mangoes were not very hard. 
• I reduced the salt from amma's proportion as I used table salt which is much saltier than the traditional coarse rock salt used in India, adjust salt to suit your taste.
• The smaller mustard seeds are more flavorful than the big seeds, use them if you can or add a half cup more of mustard to the recipe. 
• Over time, fenugreek seeds become soft and completely absorb the flavors of the pickle and makes for a wonderful explosion in your mouth when you eat it. 
• Avakkaya has a lot of pindi (the masala) in it as this is typically mixed with hot rice and enjoyed. We did that on the day I mixed the avakkaya to get the most bang for buck, added hot rice in the avakkaya mixing bowl and ate it :-)

The Avakkaya made above is the plain version where mustard takes center stage, Prathibha is posting many variations of the avakkaya with her mother in law to help her out, check them out on her blog. I took 2 handfuls of the mixed avakkaya separately and embellished(!) them with peeled garlic pods because both BH and DD are great garlic fans while I don't like them in my pickle. So we have 2 cute little containers on the dining table with avakkaya now - one with garlic and one without it :-).