Sunday, April 30, 2006

Mamidikaya Pachi Pulusu

YAY! My second mango post of the year! Can you sense my excitement? The first dish was raw mango pulihora.

Usually when things are made with raw mango, it is best to use mangoes that are a little sour. Using the sweet raw mango does not do justice to this dish and the pulihora.

Firstly, I want to explain what this Telugu recipe title means. The word "mamidikaya" means raw mango. The word pachi means, raw. Pulusu is used primarily for tamarind sauce. The word pulusu originated from the word "puli" in Tamil which means tamarind. In this case though, there is no tamarind involved. I have my own reasoning of why it is called pulusu though. This same exact dish is made with tamarind pulp instead of mango. Now, way back when, who ever discovered that this could be made with mango, decided to just throw in the word mango infront of the already existing regular "pachi pulusu" ;). I could be totally wrong, so don't take my word for this :).

This particular dish "pachi pulusu" is very common in the "Telangana" region of my state Andhra Pradesh. This is a very easy recipe, that is usually served cold with hot rice. I only make this simple, comforting dish once or twice a year that way I feel it doesn't loose it's "charm" :). That is just my theory though!

As soon as Indira of Mahanandi announced the Jihva event and announced May's theme (mangoes), two dishes came to mind. One of them was mango jam (Indira has already blogged about it) and this one! I was hoping Indira wouldn't make this before me.
For the pulusu:

Software
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  • 1 small-medium non-ripe mango (preferably sour)
  • 1/4 cup finely chopped onions
  • handful - chopped cilantro
  • salt to taste
Hardware
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  • One medium sauce pan
Method
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  • Peel the mango and cut the mango into 2-3 inch slices. Put the pieces in the pan, add water so that all the mango pieces are well covered and the water is a couple of inches above the mangoes. Add salt, and boil the mango on medium-high heat until the mango breaks apart when touched with a fork.
  • After the mango mixture is cold enough to handle, using a potato masher mash up the mango pieces or just use your hand and mash it up. I put 4-5 ice cubes in the mixture to ensure fast cooling.
  • Add more water as necessary, so it has the soupy, rasam consistency. Add the onions and the cilantro. Keep aside.
For the tempering or tadka:

Software
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  • 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
  • 3-4 Indian green chilis, sliced legthwise in half
  • 1 broken red chili pieces
  • 1 tsp jeera seeds
  • 1 tsp black mustard seeds
  • 1 sprig curry leaves, cut in half
  • 1/2 tsp turmeric powder
  • 1/2 tsp coriander powder
Hardware
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  • Small cast-iron skillet or a small saucepan
Method
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  • Add the oil to the pan. Add the remaining ingredients, in the same order and turn off the heat after the mustard and jeera seeds splutter.
Add the above tempering to the pulusu prepared in the previous step. Check for salt and add more if necessary.

Serving Suggestion: This is best served with hot rice. It is also good after it rests for a couple of hours so the flavors get absorbed.

Update: In the above post, I first ask to peel the mangoes then boil them, but if you see the picture, I did not peel the mangoes before I boiled them. I did it the way mom does it back home. After the mangoes are mashed up the skin is extracted out and discarded. Since that seemed like a cumbersome method than first peeling and boiling the mangoes, I wrote up the post that way! I am surprised that no one noticed it and asked me about it :)!

18 comments:

Admin said...

Cool, this is ;-) Mangorific lol

Anonymous said...

L2C, how intriguing! I never expected the pulusu to be cold. I have 2 raw mangoes in my crisper drawer and I am just praying that they are raw, white and sour so that I can make this dish.

Tanuja said...

I make pachi pulusu with grilled brinjal but never heard with mamidikaya tapakunda try chestanu. I serve my family pachi pulusu all over the summer atleast once a week, by having this dish the effect of summer will not make the kids sick. Thanks for the recipe.

Anonymous said...

I've tasted this rasam before at a friends home, but I never attempted to prepare at home. Now I can.
Thanks for sharing this recipe and participating in this event, LC.

wheresmymind said...

That looks really beautiful! I really need to try cooking with Mango's at some point :)

KA said...

mmm pachi pulusu yumm, especially if combined with kandi pachadi.
Looks delicious.

Luv2cook said...

Tony:

Yeah. The entire blogosphere is mangorific today!

Manisha:

Let me know how it turns out.

Tanuja:

Try cheyyandi, chaala baaguntundhi.

Indira:

Thank you for the oppotunity.

SH:

Thanks for the question. You know, when I was typing the post, I thought I should talk about the exact same point but I forgot to mention. I think it is called pachi here because in the original pachi pulusu recipe, the tamarind water is not cooked/boiled in any fashion, hence I think this is just named that way! This is just my reasoning.

Jeff:

Mangoes ARE GOOD! You should try them once. But then again, I cannot comment on the mangoes here because they are NOTHING compared to the ones in India. Cannot wait for that mango-India-US deal to work out so we can get some Indian mangoes here :).

RP said...

Never saw this before. Looks absolutely delicious.

Revathi said...

My husband lovessss meaning really lovesss pachi pulusu, and I never knew how to do one. I am going to make this one surely for him

Ashwini said...

L2C I loved your rationale behind the name :-)
I was taken by the fact that it is served cold. I'd def like to give this a try

archana said...

Such a mouth watering name for a dish, i want to try this one out.
Archana

Kitchenmate said...

Never heard of it before and looks very interesting one.. i am going to do try it... learning a lot of dishes today and almost everything goes into my must-dos. Good one L2C.

Lakshmi said...

I like pachi pulusu, but never tried with mango, will do it next time.

Vineela said...

Hi L2C,
Pulusu looks good.
I will add kandi pappu to this and make pulusu.
Let me try this and dal also.Your dal looks nice.
Vineela

Anonymous said...

Now I am *really* going to have to find a green mango... this sounds (and looks) delicious. :)

Anonymous said...

He! he! I would have asked to peel or not to peel later today cos I'm going to make it today!

Anonymous said...

Hey L2C, I wanted to tell you that this pulusu was excellent! I made it with 1 green chilli and 1 red chilli and set some aside for my daughter. She loved it! I added one finely chopped chilli to the pulusu for us. It was heaven!

Anonymous said...

hi, i grated the mango with big hole grater and it was excellent.