Recipe: Manga Curry

This is a pickle which is made in small quantities more often during the mango season as this pickle does not keep well for long. Whenever a fresh lot of mangoes is brought home, one bottle of manga curry is made which will soon disappear.

Ingredients:
Big raw mango cut into tiny pieces: 5 measures
Salt powder: 1 measure
Chilli powder: 1 measure
Hing: a small piece
Methi seeds: 1 tsp.
Gingelly oil: 1 tbsp.
Mustard seeds: 1 tsp.

Method:
Heat ½ tsp of oil and fry the hing and methi seeds. Cool and powder.
Wash and dry the mangoes and cut into small pieces. Add the salt, chilli powder, and the methi and hing powder. Mix well. Heat the remaining oil and add the mustard seeds. When they start spluttering, add to the pickle. This will be ready to use in 2 hours. This pickle will keep fresh longer under refrigeration.

Recipe: Kadugumanga, Kannimanga

I hope to give all the recipes of the mango preparations listed in my previous post. We shall start with Kadugumanga and Kannimanga. Kadugumanga is the favorite pickle of all Keralites. It is also healthy as it is an oil free pickle which keeps well for up to 2 years.

While we were strolling inside the colony where we live, I noticed that the mango tree in the next compound had lots of small mangoes. Now this house had been lying vacant for more than a year and nobody ever goes near this house. That is when I remembered the mangoes my son’s assistant had brought for Aavakkaya last year. I called him and asked him to get me some small mangoes from the same tree. He came back and said, “mummyji, they are too tiny.” I asked him to bring them all the same. He just could not understand what I would do with such tiny mangoes. He brought a handful of small mangoes and said apologetically, “they are too small, mummyji.” I jumped at the correct size of mangoes for kadugumanga, which I have not prepared for quite sometime now and asked him to bring more. The next day he brought more of them and I got into kadugumanga preparation. Though it is a strenuous job, years of watching my mother and grandma preparing kadugumanga at home in huge quantities helped. When the mango season arrived there was a festival atmosphere at home, especially for children. Since these would be the season’s earliest mangoes, we would go on eating although they were very acidic and our teeth would become so sensitive we were unable to eat anything else for a few days afterwards. These fresh mangoes also secrete a resin where it is attached to the stalk and this burns the corners of the mouth if the mangoes are not washed properly before eating and many children would sport this scar at the corners of their mouth. Since there was no powdered salt available those days, salt for the pickle was prepared by boiling crystallized salt in large quantities of water and straining the solution to remove the impurities and then evaporating the solution to get salt grains. Chilli powder was prepared at home. The maid pounded them in the stone mortar in a separate building in our yard called Rendankattu or second part of the house which was a little away from the main house and also housed the cattle. We children were not allowed to go there when chilli was pounded as the pungent chilli dust would burn the skin. Still we managed to peep in to see the blood red chilli powder. “Get away children,” the maid would shout at us. The maid would get one cup full of gingelly oil for an oil bath after this task to remove the effects of all the chilli dust she had to suffer.

Kadugumanga and Kannimanga are the earliest preparations one can make at the start of the season. The mangoes should have just come out of the blossoms and started taking shape. They could be as tiny as one can possibly get. Kadugumanga and Kannimanga are listed together because the initial process for both preparations is done together. To make it easy, I am giving below the measurements by volume. Once the ingredients are assembled the process itself is very easy. At home kadugumanga was prepared in large porcelain jars as the quantity of kadugumanaga prepared was some 20kgs or more. While preparing smaller quantities any glass jar would do.

Ingredients:

Tiny mangoes: 6 measures
Salt: One measure
Good quality chilli powder: 1 measure
Mustard powder: 1/8 measure

Wash the mangoes thoroughly and spread on a clean cloth to remove all the moisture. Put the mangoes and salt in layers in a jar and keep aside. Keep stirring the mangoes every day. By the second day, water would have started oozing out of the mangoes. Keep stirring daily until the water level reaches above the mangoes. Take this water and mix in the chilli powder and mustard powder in clean bowl and add to the salted mangoes. Keep the jar covered air tight and keep in a cool dark place. Keep stirring every day for another week. The pickle will be ready to use in a week.

Kannimanga Or Uppumanga


As the name suggests this are just tiny mangoes in brine solution without chilli powder or any other spices. The brined mangoes are used to make chutney called arachukalakki and are also used as a side dish for curds rice during the lean months of monsoon. The brined mangoes are especially good for the intestine and believed to heal ulcers in the gastrointestinal tract.

The process for preparing Kannimanga is similar to Kadugumanga and you stop at the stage of adding salt to the mangoes. The mangoes will remain in the salty water.

Recipe: Aavakkaya

Aavakkaya is the pickle synonymous with Andhra Pradesh. The utterance of the word “Aavakkai” tickles the taste buds. And when you make it, you cannot but help your mouth watering. The aroma of the newly made pickle is so intoxicating. Aavakkaya literally means pickled with mustard powder (aavalu in Telugu means mustard) and rightly so, mustard powder is the main preservative here along with gingelly oil.

When one of my son’s assistants brought home a basket full of mangoes, I was at a loss not knowing what to do with so many raw mangoes. I asked him why he brought so many mangoes when I would have been happy with 2 or 3. “Pickle them, Mummyji,” he said. That’s when I thought of making Aavakkaya. As I had not made this pickle in recent times, I called my friend Sujatha, to ask for the method. She promptly said, “I will come tomorrow and help you. Keep chilli powder, salt, mustard powder and oil and other things ready.” I was only too happy to get the things ready, as I did not have to worry about the final product. I have been getting to taste Sujatha’s mother’s Aavakkaya every year. And they are superb.

She specifically told me not to buy the mustard powder, but to buy mustard, sun dry and grind them fresh. "Or else," she said, "the pickle will taste bitter." So I went and bought all the ingredients and sun dried them . I also washed all the mangoes thoroughly and dried them in shade, by spreading them in a clean towel, to remove all moisture.

Sujatha came promptly at 11 am next morning and we started the preparation.We cut the mangoes into large pieces and measured them. Accordingly we measured the other ingredients. Here is the ratio:

Ingredients:

Raw mango pieces: 5 measures ( approximately 3.5 Kg)

Red chilli powder : 1measure (I used 300gms. One may add upto 500gms., depending on individual preference)
Freshly ground mustard powder: 1 measure ( here again those who like the taste of mustard oil can use upto 500 gms )
Salt: 1 ¼ measure(8oogms)

Whole fenugreek seeds: 50 gms

Turmeric powder: 2 tbsp.

Good quality gingelly oil: 1 ltr



Method:

The mangoes should have firm stone inside.(the stone should be attached to the flesh of the mango and when cut through, the stone should still be attached to the mango pieces.) Wash and dry the mangoes in a clean towel in shade. Cut them into large pieces.Discard the soft seed portion .
Keep the other ingredients ready(in the proportion given above).

Keep a large glass jar or earthenware jar washed and sun-dried, ready. (As I was in Hyderabad, where I function with minimum kitchen gadgets, I did not have a glass jar or earthenware jar. Hence I used a large pet jar).

Now comes the most difficult part. Mixing the ingredients. Sujatha insisted on mixing them with hands. I would have preferred mixing them with a large spatula, as my skin is very sensitive to chilli powder.

Mix all the dry ingredients(chilli powder, mustard powder, salt,turmeric powder and fenugreek seeds) thoroughly. Take another large shallow pan for the final mixing. Into this pan, transfer a portion of the cut mango pieces. Add a portion of the pickle masala to the mangoes. Pour 1 or 2 spoonfuls of gingelly oil and mix the contents thoroughly with hand or a spatula. Transfer them to the jar. Repeat this process, until all the mango pieces and pickle masala are used up. Top the jar with the remaining oil and pickle masala, if any. Keep the jar in a cool dry place. Within an hour, you can see the gravy oozing out of the mango pieces and within 2 to 3 hours, there would be a 1”top layer of oil and gravy above the mango pieces(called “Oota” in telugu). This is the sign of right quantity of ingredients, said, Sujatha’s mother, when I called her to report the event. Stir it thoroughly with a dry spoon every day for 5 days, she said. I followed her instructions and the results were just superb.