Maanga Vattakuzhambu ~ Sun dried mangoes in tamarind gravy AND a prelude to a giveaway

Remember I had hosted a promotional giveaway sometime back and Shoba of Anubhavati won the waffle maker. Its time for another giveaway. This time its going to different. Watch this space for the details which will be posted soon.


Now on to the recipe. Apart from pickling  raw  mangoes, I preserve them in the form of vathals/sun dried mangoes. Fresh mangoes which are sour and raw is chopped into pieces and marinated in salt and kept for a day. During the course, water will be released from the salt and mango juice. Next day, the mango pieces are squeezed and dried in the sun. The dried mangoes are put back in the squeezed salt water and this is repeated, till no water is left in the jar. A day more of drying in the sun leaves you with salted and dried mangoes. Store them in air tight container. It stays good for a year. This mango vattal is made into a vathakuzhambu.  In this kuzhambu, red chilly is used mnimally and heat is from peppercorns.

You need

Dried Mango pieces - 1/2 cup heaped

Tamarind - goose berry size

Turmeric - a pinch

Salt

To roast

Red chilly - 1 nos

Peppercons - 1/2 tspn

Urad dal- 2 tspn

Cumin seeds - 1/2 tspn

Curry leaves - few

Ghee/Oil - 2 tspn to roast

For Seasoning

Oil - 1 tspn

Mustard seeds - 1 tspn

Methi seeds -a pinch

Hing powder - few shakes

                 

Method

Soak the dried mango pieces in a cup of warm water for 20 minutes to soften. You can also microwave the mango along with water for a minute.  Extract tamarind juice. Roast the ingredients in ghee/oil till dal turns brown. Add the cumin seeds towards the end since it gets roasted faster.

Grind the soaked mango pieces along with the roasted ingredients to a smooth paste. You can use the soaked water to grind. Stir in the ground mixture to the tamarind extract. Add salt, tumeric powder and bring to a boil. Let it simmer for a while till the gravy thickens. Season with mustard, hing and methi seeds.

                           

Note:

Adjust the tamarind according to the sourness of the dried mangoes. Since the mangoes have salt in it, add salt keeping that in mind.

 

Manathakkali Vathal

Manathakkali/Balck Nightshade are tiny berries to the size bigger than mustard seeds. They are green in color and on ripening turns deep purple. Ripe berries always reminds me of my childhood days. Those days, the ripe ones was a favorite among the kids. We were four kids at home, me, my sister and two cousins. It was a joint family. Being kids, we used to eat ourselves, if we get something like a chocolate from school or anything like that. But my sister was different. She had the habit of sharing with each one of us before she ate. Her sharing quality is to the extent that she will count the tiny ripened berries and divide it among four of us. But if it was me or my cousins, we would have easily gulped it down within seconds  of picking them.  Even today at family get-togethers, my sister's manathakkali sharing is talked about.

The green berries are used to make vathals. This is common in Tamilnadu. In Kerala, I think only the Palakkad Iyers patronize this vathal. This plant comes on its own like the curry leaves tree. That is to say we don't usually sow the seeds. It has been appearing in our backyard at one place or the other as far as my memory takes me back. It grows to a height of 1 metre with many branches. It needs sunlight to grow. Picking these tiny berries is a very tedious task. The berries are then washed and soaked in buttermilk, added with salt and turmeric. The following day, the liquid is squeezed and the berries are dried in the sun. After sun drying, its again soaked in the remaining buttermilk. This is continued till no liquid is left. After that, with a day of sun drying, it will turn dry and crisp. Store it in airtigt bottles and will stay good for nearly a year, if it lasts so. The dried berries will be 1/4 in quantity to the fresh ones used.

 

The vathals can be used while preparing Vethakuzhambu or its simply fried in ghee/nallennai (gingely oil( and mixed with hot rice and had. You can also add some finely chopped onion / garlci to the oil and saute till brown. Then add the dried berries and fry them. While frying the berries puff well and turn brown in color. some berries pop when fried.

 

 

 

 

The leaves/ manathakkali keerai is used to cure mouth ulcers. Its found to be effective. Leaves can be cooked  as keerai chundal or slightly sauteed and mixed in curd with a dash of salt to make a raita. The slight bitterness will be offset by the addition of curd. Fresh berries can be added in Uppadam. Other than using in uppadam, I have not cooked fresh berries on its own.

 

 

 

 

Chundakkai Vathal

Chundakka Vathal (Turkey Berry)

Chundakkai is very bitter in taste. The fresh ones can be used to make tamarind based gravies. Usually, chundakkai is preferred to make vathals, so that it can be stored for later use. It is mainly used for the preparation of vathalkuzhambu or can be deep fried and used as sides too.

Chundakkai - 2 cups

Buttermilk - 1 cup

Urad dal - 2 tblspn

Red Chilly - 3 nos

Salt to taste

Soak urad dal and red chilly for an hour.Grind it to a smooth paste.

Wash and slightly crush the berries. Crushing helps to remove the bitterness when later soaked in buttermilk mixture.

Add buttermilk, ground paste and salt to the crushed chundakkai. Mix well.

Leave it for a day.

Drain the chundakkais and dry it under sun. After each day of drying, continue to soak
them in the leftover buttermilk mixture till it is completely absorbed.

Dry the chundakkais for a day after no liquid mixture is left in the vessel.

Store in airtight containers. It will stay good for more than a year.

Shall post the recipe for vathakuzhambu soon.

Kolli Vadam (Tapioca Papad-Sundried)

Once summer sets in, one can see plastic sheets with various type of karuvadams and vathals dried in front of the houses. This is a common sight in my village.

I started before the actual summer set in. Then I will have rush to finish the drying before it gets really hot. Now, I can be little late in starting with the drying work, since sun is bearable till around 10:30 in the morning.

This weekend I made kolli vadam. I have to prepare one more batch. May be in the coming weekend.



Tapioca powder (store bought) - 1/2 kg

Raw rice - 1/2 cup

Pepper powder - 3 tspn

Salt and Hing - as per taste

Oil - 2 tbspn


Wash and soak the raw rice for 2 hrs and grind it to a fine paste.

Allow it to ferment for 6 hrs. It should get a sour taste. I left it overnight.



Make a batter of the tapioca powder and the rice paste with water. Add hing and salt. The batter should be thinner than dosa batter.You measure the said batter. Water required is twice the measure of the batter.


Take a thick bottomed vessel big enough to accomodate the water and batter and some extra space. Once cooked, it will increase in quantity. I used the uruli. It is convenient to prepare karuvadam maavu (dough for sun dried fritters) in the uruli.



Add water. When water is warm, slowly add the batter without forming lumps. Keep stirring. When it starts to thicken, add 2 tbspn of oil and the pepper powder. Mix well. Make sure it doesn't stick to the bottom of the pan.



It took 10 minutes for me to get the glazy texture. May be it cooked fast since I used uruli. When it gets a glazy texture, you can switch off the heat. Keep it in the same vessel for 5 minutes before you transfer to another vessel.



When it comes to room temperature, drop spoonfuls on a plastic sheet and slightly spread them to the size of a puri with the back of the spoon. Don't make it too thin.

After 4 hours of drying in the sun, try flipping it over. It should get dried in 2 days if it is very sunny.

Vendakkai Vathal

Vendakkai vathal /kondattam (sun dried lady's finger )

Vegetables in season are preserved by sun drying them. Popular veggies sun dried are bhindi,chick peas, mango etc.



Vendakkai vathal on deep frying will be crisp and tasty. You can use the fried ones in preparing raitas too. My vegetable vendor generously gave me 2 Kg of bhindi almost free. So I decided to convert them to vattals.



You will require

Bhindi

Tamarind - lemon size

Chilly powder - 2 tspn

Turmeric - 1/2 tspn

Salt





Wash and dry the bhindis.

Cut them into 1/2 inch long pieces.

Soak the tamarind in warm water.

Extract the juice and add water to it so that it comes to 1 1/2 cup.

Add salt, turmeric and chilly powder. (Adjust these according to your taste)

Transfer the cut bhindi pieces to a pressure cooker. (You can cook directly in the cooker.)

Pour the tamarind mixture.

Steam cook for 15 minutes. (No need to put whistle.)


Drain and dry it under the sun. I got it dried with in 2 days.



sun dried



oil fried