Showing posts with label Green Mango. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Green Mango. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

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 :-).

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Maagaya - Mango pickle, no recipe, only pictorial!

I am deviating today from usual posts in that I only have a pictorial  for you but no recipe. I promise this is not a teaser (not for long atleast), I will get the exact proportions soon and update the post.

Coming to maagaya - it is a pickle made from sour green mangoes, peeled mangoes are cut into thin strips (almost like gratings), salted and sun dried. Fried mustard, fenugreek and red chilies make up the masala. Oil is heated and then brought back to room temperature before it is added to the pickle. The maagaya is preseved in porcelain pots called "jaadis" to last until the next pickle season. There are various ways of enjoying a maagaya pickle. We love this more than avakkaya or avakkayi at home (I know, it is a sacrilege to say what I did just now :-), but it is personal preference). Amma makes delicious maagayi pachadi from the preserved maagaya by grinding maagaya with green chilies and raw onions and mixing with yogurt. It is a standard side dish for pooris at our home.

The reason I don't have the recipe or in this case proportions for maagaya is that I didn't make the maagaya shown below. The pictures are all from back home from the kitchen of the queen of pickles and pachadis in our family. BH's atta carries on the tradition of summer pickles that has been in the family for generations and no matter what her health conditions are or how hot the summer is, she still prepares these delicious pickles every single year. Having eaten her pickles, I can honestly say she makes some of the best maagaya, gongura and avakkaya (without garlic for me). We got these pictures from dear atta and mamaiah when they made the pickles couple of weeks back and temperatures were soaring at 95F. Thank you both for sharing the pictures on the blog.

Here is pictorial of maagaya making from atta's Rajahmundry home. 
Cleaned, dried, mangoes being peeled. Notice the gadget on the right which will be used to scrape mangoes into thin slices

It takes 3 generations of people and a helper to make the pickle :-)

Cut mangoes spread in wide plates, mixed with rock salt and turmeric

After being Sun dried, mangoes are mixed in masala and drenched in oil

They go into the porcelain jaadis and used throughout the year

Yummy maagaya, ready to be used



Thursday, April 12, 2012

Mango Tokku or Mango relish

Now that we are officially into Spring, I get green mangoes every week from my local Indian grocery store and we have been having a parade of dishes featuring these beauties. The green mangoes we get are not as tart as the ones I have seen in India but they are much bigger.

Tokku is a close relative of the more popular pickle. Though mango pickles of all forms of shape hit the market in their pretty bottles many years ago, tokku took time before it was bottlized (is that even a word :-)) but we grew up licking tokku on the side with curd rice.  The taste comes from the right(what you like) combination of tart mango, red chili powder, salt and the flavor from fenugreek and mustard. Tokku typically has very few ingredients, end product is a concentrate meant to be used conservatively.

I made this a week back and as I am writing this post, BH is looking over my shoulder and saying 'When did you make tokku?', he is the one who licked that bowl clean and I know it is a masked request for 'make it again' :-)

What do you need to make Mango Tokku? 
1 big firm green mango (see note below)
1 Tblsp red chili powder
2 Tblsp cooking oil
1 Tblsp salt (adjust to taste)
1 Tsp methi/fenugreek seeds
1/4 Tsp mustard seeds
1/2 Tsp asafoetida powder
1/2 Tsp turmeric powder

Seasoning/vaggarane: 
1 Tsp cooking oil
1 Tsp mustard seeds
3-4 curry leaves

How do you make Mango Tokku?
  • Wash, peel and grate the mango.
  • Heat a heavy bottom pan, dry roast the fenugreek seeds and mustard seeds on medium heat until they start to pop.
  • Take them aside, let it cool, powder it in a coffee grinder or mortar & pestle.
  • Heat oil in the pan, add the mango gratings, turmeric powder, salt and cook it covered for 5 minutes. 
  • When the mango softens up, add red chili powder, asafoetida and continue to cook uncovered.
  • The ingredients in the pan come together getting a pulpy consistency, leaving oil on the sides, takes about 20-25 minutes. Keep mixing frequently and take care not to burn it from bottom.
  • When oil starts to ooze from the sides, add the fenugreek powder, mix well and switch off. 
  • Make vaggarane by heating oil, adding mustard and curry leaves. Once mustard crackles, switch off, pour it over the thokku, mix well. 
  • Let the tokku cool completely before storing in a dry jar. 
  • It will stay fresh for upto a week in the refrigerator and about 3 days outside.
  • This tokku will brighten up your chapathis, bread toasts, idli or dosa any time of the day.
Notes: 
  • When I say big mango, I am thinking the ones we get here in US which is about the same size as the omelet mango you get back in India. The gratings should be 2 tightly packed cups. 
  • Adding vaggarane/seasoning is completely optional but enhances the flavor.
  • I add asafoetida while cooking the mango as it incorporates well in the tokku. 
  • Keep the mustard in the powder about half or less that of fenugreek seeds.

Thursday, March 29, 2012

Mango Rice or Mavinakayi Chitranna for Ugadi

We are into the week after Ugadi but I am still posting about my Ugadi menu :-). That is the spirit right? stretching the joys of life as long as you can. But this will be my last of the posts for 2012 Ugadi.

In Karnataka, mango rice or mavinakayi chitranna is made a few different ways, the one I have today is my favorite, it is called hasi saasive (raw mustard) mango rice. The marriage of raw mustard and sour green mangoes in this rice dish is heavenly.

Growing up I had seen nammamma choose different varieties of green mango for different purposes, she would want the really sour ones for pickling and chitranna while the tender, sweeter ones would be cut up and smeared with spices and eaten just like that :-). I don't have so much choice here so I pick the green mangoes of any size and shape and hope it does the trick. I had got some really nice green mangoes this time around Ugadi and gladly used it in Ugadi pachadi, Mango Dal and Mango Chitranna.

What do you need to make Mango rice? 
2 cups of cooked rice - use sona masoori or similar varieties
1 medium sized green mango - washed, peeled and grated about 2 cups of gratings
1 Tblsp mustard seeds
4-5 dry red chilies
3 Tblsp of grated coconut (fresh or frozen)
1 Tblsp salt (adjust to taste)
1 Tsp cooking oil
For vagagrane/seasoning: 
1 Tblsp cooking oil
1 Tsp mustard seeds/saasive
1 Tblsp chana dal
2 Tblsp raw peanuts
1 sprig of curry leaves (5-6 leaves)
1/2 Tsp turmeric powder

How do you make Mango rice? 
  • Take red chilies and mustard seeds into a blender and pulse it a few times to break the mustard seeds. 
  • Add grated mango reserving 1 Tblsp of it for garnish, coconut, salt and a Tblsp of water and grind it into a chutney like consistency. 
  • Heat a pan on medium heat, add a Tsp of oil and pour the ground chutney into it. 
  • Stir frequently on medium heat until water evaporates and raw mustard smell goes away. 
  • Cook rice so the grains are separate. 
  • Spread the rice to cool down in a large bowl. Pour the chutney on top of the rice and let it cool down completely. 
  • Prepare vaggarane - Heat oil in a pan, add mustard, chana dal and peanuts and fry till mustard and peanuts pop. 
  • Switch off and add turmeric powder and curry leaves. 
  • Pour the sizzling vaggarane on top of the rice and gently work the chutney and vaggarane into the rice taking care not to mush up the rice. 
  • Garnish with the reserved mango gratings at the end.
  • Let the mango rice sit for about 30 minutes before serving. 
Tips:
  • Add a couple of drops of oil while cooking rice to get fluffy, grain-separated rice. 
  • The chutney when you grind it should be strong in spices as it mellows down on mixing with rice. Adjust red chilies, salt or mango to suit your taste. 
  • Use additional red chili powder if you want it spicier but note that mustard gives a strong flavor to the rice and you do not want to over power it with the chilies.
  • The sourness comes from the mango, choose firm, green mangoes that are tart in taste. 
Here is another look at my Ugadi platter