Instant Mango Pickle

When you're a food blogger, people expect certain things from and of you. They expect you to know recipes for many/most dishes. They expect you to tell them what they can substitute and sometimes also what they need to do to fix something that has gone horribly wrong. I have to admit I don't always have answers. I usually follow a recipe that I have. Often enough, I tweak it. If it works, it comes on to the blog. If it doesn't, it is simply forgotten.

Two summers ago, a friend wrote to me saying she was craving a certain type of mango pickle. Would I happen to know how to make it? Or could I ask my mother who would be bound to know about this? Amma and Appa were visiting me then and I decided I should ask Amma for the recipe.

Considering how I almost never eat pickles, Amma was a tad bit shocked that I was asking her for a recipe. However, she gave me the recipe and this pickle is now an annual feature in my kitchen.

1 cup Raw Mango, diced into 1/2" cubes

3 tsp Chilli Powder (I use Kashmiri Chilli Powder)

2-3 tsp Salt (according to taste)

2 tsp Oil (I use Gingelly/Sesame/Til Oil)

1/2 tsp Mustard Seeds

1/4 tsp Asafoetida

1/2 tsp Fenugreek Seeds

1/2 tsp Turmeric Powder

Add salt, turmeric and chilli powder to the mango pieces and mix well. 

Heat the oil in a tempering ladle. Add the mustard seeds and asafoetida. When the mustard splutters, let the oil cool. Then add the tempering to the pickle.

On a dry griddle/tawa,  heat the fenugreek seeds and toast for a few minutes. Grind to a powder when cool with some turmeric powder. Add this to the pickle.

Enjoy in a variety of ways: With Tayir Saadam or Narlya Kheeri.

This is a fresh pickle which does not keep for very long. I store it in the fridge and use it up within a week or so. I hope you enjoy some of my simple pleasure this summer.

Mango Melon Smoothie

I know a lot of people who start their day with a bowl of oatmeal porridge. Unfortunately, I am not one of them. I've always craved some sort of a breakfast routine and am very envious of those who manage to stick to one. My parents, for example, will start six out of seven days in a week with a bowl of oatmeal. Outwardly, I make fun of them and ask them whether they never tire of it. But secretly, I wish I could be like them. Amma doesn't miss out on the poha, upma, idli, dosa, bread routine at all. She puts them on the dinner table instead of the breakfast table.

For the past few weeks, I have managed to eat oatmeal every morning. I usually mix some curd and left over veggies/dal and eat it. Some days, I blend it with some cumin powder, salt and curd into a salty lassi of sorts. On days when I have fruit on hand and am in the mood for something sweet (which isn't often that early in the morning!), I turn it up into something like this.

1/4 cup Quick Cooking Oats
1/2 cup Water
1 tsp Sugar (optional)
1/4 cup Mango cubes
1/4 cup Melon cubes
1/2 cup Milk

Cook the oats with the water for 3-4 minutes and allow to cool. Blend this along with the other ingredients in a liqiuidizer. Add more milk if you like your smoothie a little thinner.

Pour into a glass and enjoy your breakfast. I can guarantee that something like this will keep you satisfied until lunch time and that you're quite likely to not reach out for something else in between.

Mango Cardamom Pound Cake

I have often talked about my love for baking. I started baking a couple of years before I started cooking and so there's always been a soft spot for baking. Yes, there are the calories to think about. There's no running away from all that butter and sugar. Over the past few years, I have learnt to substitute oil for butter, jaggery for sugar, etc, in more recent times, I have rediscovered cakes with real butter. In one month, I baked 3 cakes, all of them pound cakes, and all with real butter.

I thought a lot about why I didn't like using butter. For starters, the thought of measuring the butter always put me off. First you thaw the butter. Then you measure it into a cup. That leaves you with a greasy spoon or knife and a greasy cup. Since I am not like the Food Network chefs who just dump the stuff in the sink, I, by sheer force of habit, have to use my hands to try and remove as much butter from the cup, the spoon and that leaves my fingers extremely greasy. I decided to be more organized, to keep soap and towels handy, and just take the plunge.

I was at the supermarket to buy some butter for these cakes. I found some brands that were sold in 250g packs. But I saw some others which were selling in 227g packs. I was a little irritated at first, but bought the 227g pack anyway. I came home and started to bake the cake. Was there a way out of measuring the butter? I ran a search to see how much half a cup of butter in grams would be. As it turns out, half a cup is about 115g. Voila! The 227g pack of butter was effectively 1 cup. I didn't have to measure the butter at all. I just cut my block in 2 pieces and allowed just one half to thaw. That was one more "happy to be living in Singapore" moment for me.

Enough about my well known love for baking. Coming to my well known love for blogging. I agree that this blog was a little abandoned in between. But I was baking the proverbial bun in my oven, so I was entitled to time off from blogging. As soon as I was able to, I resumed cooking. So, within a week of my delivery, I was dishing out at least one meal every couple of days for my family. And as soon as I could manage it, I resumed blogging too. There are many many reasons I love blogging. The biggest reason is the friends it has given me. And a couple of them are as close to me as some of the friends I have made in real life.

In 2007, Nandita and I were chatting and she told me about this mava cake she wanted to try out. She asked me if I would bake it with her. She in her kitchen in Bombay and I in mine in Gurgaon. It seemed like a terribly exciting thing to do back then. I had so much fun. Compating notes, choosing when to post it, and everything else. A couple of weeks ago, Arundati and I were chatting and she happened to be doing a lot of baking that day. I told her about how I was dragging my feet over a batch of chocolate chip cookies and she asked me to bake alongside her. So, there we were, she in Hyderabad and I in Singapore. She baking cupcakes and I making chocolate chip cookies. Even after 4 years of blogging, it still felt terribly exciting.


I mentioned, on Facebook, how much fun it was to be doing this, and before I knew it, the Baking Club gad been formed. Something like the Sisterhood of Traveling Cake Tins! My other namesake, Arundathi, and Aparna were also keen and we decided to celebrate summer by making pound cakes using mango. We picked recipes that appealed to us and made the cakes. This was even more exciting as there were more people involved and lots more notes being compared. So look out for more mango pound cakes in the blogosphere today.
I picked a recipe from the well known food blogger, Divya. Divya has given me so much happiness by regularly cooking stuff from my blog and blogging about it. She even dedicated one entire post to all the recipes she made my blog. I read it from time to time and always end up getting misty eyed. This is what keeps this blog going.

Divya blogged about her Mango Buttermilk Pound Cake a few days ago and I came across this recipe. This being a recipe that she adapted from Deeba's blog, I decided I had to try it. Two friends, one recipe. I can be sure of a hands down winner! I modified Divya's recipe even more and although I've been baking for almost 25 years now, I forgot to add the baking powder. Despite that, this cake was a winner all the way. The next time, I will add the baking powder, and I'm writing down the recipe here without excluding that ingredient.

1 1/2 cups Cake Flour

1/2 tsp Baking Powder

1/4 tsp Baking Soda

1/2 tsp Salt

1 tsp Cardamom, Powdered

1/2 cup Unsalted Butter

3/4 cup Sugar

2 Eggs

100ml Buttermilk

1/2 cup Mango Pulp

Icing sugar, for dusting (I used the canned variety)

Butter and Flour/Spray for preparing the cake tin

Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

Preheat the oven to 180 C/350 F. Prepare a 10" round tin. (I used a springform ring mould.)

Cream the butter with the sugar until the mixture is light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the buttermilk, mango pulp and cardamom and beat again. Incorporate the dry ingredients into the batter, adding a little at a time.

Pour the mixture into the prepared cake tin and bake for 30-40 minutes or until a knife inserted into the cake comes out clean. Allow the cake to cool a little and sieve the icing sugar over it.

Cut into slices when warm using a bread knife.

This cake was so good that S didn't really want me to share it with others. I, on the other hand, was happy to give the cake to friends because that way I could bake again. And I know I am going to keep baking this one, over and over again.

Andurli

I'm back with an authentic konkani recipe after ages. It is the mango season here. I must admit that I haven't had my fill yet. I can't help it if peaches, apricots, cherries and litchis made their way into the market almost a month before their time. We did buy and eat some Banganpalli mangoes in April and May. I found these smaller mangoes called Gola. They instantly reminded me of the small mangoes called Gontambe which are used in the famous amchi dish called Andurli. Although the Gola mangoes are much bigger, I made the dish last week and found that this variety of mangoes is very tasty.

6 small Ripe Mangoes

1/4 cup Jaggery

1/2 tsp Pepper Powder

1 tsp Rice Flour

Salt to taste

For the tempering:

1 tsp Oil

1/4 tsp Mustard Seeds

1/4 tsp Asafoetida

7-8 Curry Leaves

3-4 Red Chillies

Peel the mangoes and keep the peel in a bowl with about 1 cup of water. Squeeze the juice from the peels and discard the peels.

Place the mangoes and the water in a pan. Add the jaggery, salt and pepper and bring the mixture to a boil. Mix the rice flour in a little water and add it to the mixture. Simmer for 10-12 minutes until the mangoes are cooked.

In a frying ladle, heat the oil and add the mustard seeds and the asafoetida. When the mustard splutters, add the curry leaves and the red chillies. Add this to the mangoes.

Serve as a side dish with rice, dali-saar, and some upkari. This particular combination of spicy and sweet is an acquired taste. Most konkani folks are initiated into this spicy-sour-sweet combination early on in life. If you don't particularly fancy a side dish with mixed tastes, have it on its own.

Mango Mint Cooler

Mangoes! They seem to make summer worthwhile. I see no reason to look forward to summers if it were not for these fruits. And the many other fruits that make an appearance for a short while each year. Raw mangoes start appearing a little before their fully ripe siblings. We bought some mangoes and I only wanted to make a chutney. But with the temperatures soaring to 46 C, a chutney or thuvayal was the last thing on my mind. I had a bunch of fresh mint leaves and decided to make this drink. It was great as it is and also as a mixer with vodka.

1 cup Raw Mango, peeled and diced

1 tbsp Roasted Cumin Powder

1 tsp Rock Salt, powdered

1/4 cup Mint Leaves, chopped

2-4 tbsp Sugar

Cook the mangoes with the rock salt, cumin powder and sugar, using a little water if necessary. Cool for a bit and grind to a paste with the mint leaves.

This mixture can be mixed with water (1:3 ratio) and makes for a great mixer as well. Pour over lots of ice and bid summer goodbye!

Mango Kulfi

I am a big ice cream fan. My mother used to make the most delicious ice cream at home that we’d dig into very religiously after dinner. Someday I’ll blog about that. Even now, we almost always have ice cream in the freezer, but I barely eat it. I feel very bad when I sometimes have to throw some of it away to make space for other more precious stuff. But Gurgaon has these ice cream cycles of all companies just about everywhere. So, when I feel the urge, all I have to do is step outside our apartment complex and choose from Mother Dairy, Kwality Walls, Vadilal and Cream Bell. With all this choice, I end up eating the same Orange Ice Candy.

When I was little, we didn’t have as much choice. Some trips to the Adyar Bakery House on Sardar Patel Road would result in a treat with Joy Ice Creams. Dinners at Woodlands Hotel on Edward Elliots Road would always end with a slab of vanilla, chocolate or strawberry ice cream. The occasional buffets that we were treated to at the Taj Coromandel or Connemara would mean that we’d stand almost perennially in front of the ice cream counter.


Then there’s the Indian ice cream that I was introduced to soon after my eldest cousin’s wedding: Kulfi. She’d been married almost 25 years when S and I tied the knot. When we visited “her” house at Antop Hill, the summer after her wedding, we ended our dinner by calling the kulfiwala. I was hooked from the first bite. And then I’d started demanding it almost every night for the month that we stayed in Bombay. Year after year. Until Amma started making the stuff at home.


There was a time when Nestle’s Milkmaid was much sought after. I remember a time when they either gave away free recipe booklets or kulfi moulds. We still have two of their signature blue plastic kulfi moulds and a much used worn out recipe booklet. My dear friend A gifted me the Milkmaid Gold Collection of desserts a few years ago and I have since forgotten about the booklet. I am sure it is still among my parents’ books. This booklet taught Amma how to make the kulfi that filled our freezer almost all year long.

I wanted to make kulfi and didn’t have any moulds. I don’t like eating kulfi in Delhi/Gurgaon because they add kewra to it. I can’t stand the taste of it. Some places add a wee bit of rose essence. Some add both. I figured the easiest way to eat the kind of kulfi I wanted was to make it at home. So, I bought moulds in Madras. (I am like that only!) I also froze several packets of milk before I left for Madras just so I could make kulfi when I got back. That’s called planning.

Banganapalli mangoes have retreated from the markets and we now have Dusehri and Langda. I’d brought back some Banganapalli from Madras and after eating those I didn’t really enjoy these other varieties. But I bought them and had to do something with them. So I decided to make Mango Kulfi. It is so much simpler than I thought and we took some over to dinner at a friend’s place that night. It was all gone in minutes. My first attempt at kulfi making was a great success and I’m so thrilled with the results. I’m sending this over to Meeta for her Monthly Mingle.


1 litre Milk
1 tbsp Flour
1 ½ cups Mango Pulp
1 tin Sweetened Condensed Milk (I used Milkmaid)


Heat the milk, condensed milk and flour together and bring to a boil. Do this over a low flame and stir continuously as the condensed milk has a tendency to stick to the bottom of the vessel and get burnt. Cool completely. Mix the mango pulp into the milk mixture. Fill the kulfi moulds with this mixture and freeze until set. When set, dip the moulds in warm water, unscrew and hold over a plate. The kulfi slides out effortlessly.


I ensure that I place the moulds directly on the freezer floor and not on top of something else. (Amma did this before we had a frost free kitchen. I’m not even sure this is necessary anymore, but I still do it.)


I plan to try this out with other fruit pulp and I promise to share my results with all of you!

Kairi Panha

This is a summer drink that I have come to love. I must admit that when Amma first made this, I thought she was crazy to go to class(canning and preservation class) and learn how to make weird drinks. I must have been all of 6 at the time. Like beer, I’d call this an acquired taste. This drink would, however, win hands down as a summer drink when compared to beer. After all, while both are summer drinks and both are acquired tastes, this is a delicious drink. (You can rest assured I’d almost never use that adjective with beer.)


I tried this sometime ago using the microwave and I was very happy with the result.

1 cup Raw Mango, peeled and diced
1 tbsp Roasted Cumin Powder
1 tsp Rock Salt, powdered
½ tsp Black Pepper Powder
2-4 tbsp Sugar

Place all the ingredients in a microwave safe bowl with a little water and microwave on high for 3 minutes. Allow to cool and then blend to a paste. Mix this with two glasses of chilled water and serve.

This is traditionally served as a breakfast drink in Rajasthan and goes by the name of Kairi ka Pani. So, this is off to Padmaja at Spicy Andhra as my fifth entry to the RCI Rajasthan - Flavours of the Desert event. Since this is a breakfast number featuring mangoes, I am sending this to Arundati of Escapades, who is hosting this month's Weekend Breakfast Blogging # 22, the theme of which is Mango Madness.

Mango Muffins (Rasayan inspired)

Indian sweets and I share a very vague relationship. You can’t even call it love-hate. There are a few sweets that I absolutely love (kaju kathli, gulab jamun, rasmalai, badam kheer, sheera, kulfi) and there are those that I really wouldn’t care to look at (rice kheer/pal payasam, falooda, jangiri, rajbhog...). There is one part of me that is, without doubt, Mangalorean. Much as I love my Paruppu Urundai and Milagu Kuzhambu, I love the sweet-sour-hot combination of Saraswat cooking.



I love mangoes and can eat them everyday for every meal (yes, regardless of the eruptions on every inch of my anatomy) and I have been doing just that. Instead of cooking for just one person when I have to, I sit down with a large bowl of cut mangoes and enjoy every piece.


Rasayan is a 5 minute dessert/sweet dish that I absolutely love and it is the dish that I sent to WBB – Summer Fruits last year. That was my first WBB entry. And this year’s entry to WBB is inspired by that very recipe. I saw blueberry cinnamon muffins in some book and thought, “Mangoes and cardamom make a good pair… why not I try?” So with a few substitutions here and there, I came up with my own version of Rasayan inspired Mango Muffins.


3/4 cup Coconut Milk
1/2 cup Vegetable oil
1 cup Mango, chopped into fine pieces
1 cup Flour
1 cup Whole Wheat Flour
½ to ¾ cup Jaggery
1 tbsp Baking Powder
1 tsp Cardamom Powder or Essence
1 Egg
1/4 tsp Salt



Grease 12-muffin pan or line with paper cases. Preheat oven to 400 F.

Place all the ingredients except the mango pieces in a food processor jar fitted with the dough blade. Run the food processor for 2 minutes until the ingredients form a batter.

Blend the mango pieces into the batter and pour spoonfuls of the batter into the muffin moulds. Bake for 20 minutes.

Muffins are a great breakfast on the go and going the whole wheat way is a healthy option too. Mangoes take them to a very different level. My namesake, Arundati of Escapades, is hosting this month's Weekend Breakfast Blogging # 22, the theme of which is Mango Madness. WBB is the brainchild of Nandita of Saffron Trail and I am happy to send these muffins to her.

Quick Mango Sandesh

No recipe here. I had gone to my parents' place for the weekend and my mother had already prepared chenna. So, I treated my family to Quick Mango Sandesh that I picked up from Nandita's blog. I was way too impatient to wait for the required time and so the pics that I took seem a little sloppy. But it must have set by now and my parents must be enjoying it.

Thanks Nandita!

Peach Litchi Mango Fizz

I am leaving for home tonight. Home, today, refers to my parents' home in Madras. Funny how I never thought of that place as home because I hadn't spent too much time there. I moved out of Madras a few months after my parents moved to this place. But over the last 11 years, I've spent more than 10 away, but that house sure feels like home.

I had a failed food experiment yesterday that S and I suffered through at lunch time and I wanted to do something to make it up to him. He's traveling today and when he gets back, I'll be sitting at home with my parents and I wanted to make a little something for him.

Stuff that I found in the fridge went into this dessert. It turned out quite tasty. I do hope S finds it and likes it. And I hope you all will too.

Ingredients:

2 Peaches, chopped

1 Mango, chopped

2 scoops Litchi Ice Cream

1/2 cup Sprite

Place the fruit and ice cream in a blender or liquidizer and blend to a paste. Add the Sprite and whip it for half a minute. This is ready to eat. I loved it. If I'd added a little more Sprite, I could have had it as a cool drink.

Mammidikaya Pulihaara (Raw Mango Rice)

Puliyodarai at my place is made just one way. Amma makes puli kachal and a podi to sprinkle over the rice. Whenever we are in the mood for yummy puliyodarai, Amma dishes it out. I love eating it with avial. That's one of my favourite combinations of "festival food". I've eaten Puliyogare in Bangalore that is semi sweet and has khopra (dried coconut) as part of it. I've eaten Puli saadam (Tiger Rice) at hostel.

When I moved to Hyderabad 4 years ago, I heard about nimmakaya pulihaara. I thought it was some fancy dish until I realized it was the telugu name for our very own lemon rice. Then someone at office said, "I've brought puliyodarai for you today. Only I made it with mangoes." I was super shocked. I had never eaten rice and raw mangoes before. The maximum extent that I had gone to was to eat Manga Thokku with rice and Avakaya with rice. But hey, I was never averse to trying something new. And I did. It was quite nice.

A couple of weeks ago, we'd invited some friends over and I decided to make this instead of Sambar Rice as that is easily available in any south indian restaurant in Delhi. I try to serve food that is not so easily available, especially when my guests are not south indians. Actually, even if they are, I do the same.

I started to make this and then somewhere in between, S took over. And then he forgot he was cooking and the tadka got burnt a little. But then, so what? It came out quite nice and we all ate it with relish.

Ingredients:

2 medium raw mangoes, grated.

1 cup Rice, cooked

2 tbsp Oil

1 tsp Mustard Seeds

1/2 tsp Fenugreek Seeds

1/4 tsp Asafoetida

2-3 Red Chillies

1/4 cup Peanuts

1 tsp Black Gram Dal

1 tsp Chana Dal

1/2 tsp Turmeric Powder

7-8 Curry Leaves

Coriander Leaves for Garnish

Salt to taste

In a kadhai, heat the oil. Add all the ingredients from mustard through Chana Dal. When the mustard splutters and the dals have browned, add the curry leaves, grated raw mango, salt and turmeric powder. Cook this for a while and then mix the cooked rice in this mixture. Garnish with coriander leaves and eat with vadams or appalams.

I'm finally on Food Blog Desam. Thanks Mathy and Indira. I have not forgotten my plan to get into DH.

I'm also on Jenn's Foodie Blog Roll. Those of you who are interested in joining either of these should go right ahead.

Rasayan

Here’s another example of a dish that my mother didn’t make. I learnt it from my uncle who passed away last year. He made it with finely chopped jackfruit pieces. I am told that this can be made with banana as well. I, of course, made it with mango. It is a dessert that can made in a jiffy. I decided at the last minute to make it on Saturday. Since I always keep Dabur coconut milk cartons ready, this was ready in a few minutes. S was taken by surprise. Dessert specially made when only the two of us were lunching! (I ran out of jaggery and used brown sugar instead. The dish tasted as nice.)

Ingredients:

1 ripe big Mango
1-2 tbsp Jaggery
1/2 carton Dabur Coconut Milk
¼ tsp Cardamom powder

Chop the mango into small pieces. Add the jaggery and mix it well. Add the coconut milk and the cardamom powder. Mix it thoroughly and chill for an hour before serving. Quite like Aamras, this dish also goes very well with poories. Try it if you're in the mood for it.

This is my entry to WBB #11, hosted by Padmaja of Spicy Andhra.

Ambya Sasam (Mango Sasam)

By far, one of the easiest mango dishes to make. It is sweet and spicy at the same time and contrary to popular belief, this dish is not dessert. It is a side dish that is eaten along with the meal.

The name is derived from the main ingredient, sasam, or mustard. Since my father didn’t like the pungency of raw mustard seeds, Amma started making it by omitting them. It tastes as good either way. If you like the taste of mustard, do add a teaspoon of mustard seeds while grinding the paste.

Ingredients:

2 big ripe mangoes
2 tbsp grated jaggery
Salt to taste

To be ground to a paste:

½ cup scrapped coconut
2-3 red chillies
1 tsp Mustard seeds (Optional)

Wash the mangoes and peel them. Put the peels in a bowl with a little water. Cube the mangoes and put the seeds in the bowl, along with the peels. Extract as much juice as you can. Place the cubed mangoes in a bowl and add the jaggery and salt. Allow it to marinate a bit. Add the juice extracted.

Grind the ingredients for the paste. Add this to the mangoes and mix well. Chill and serve.

This dish is also made with pineapple or mixed fruit (apple, orange, mango, banana, grapes, pineapple).

This is my entry to the AFAM event hosted by Deepa of Recipes N More.