Many Konkanis who live in the coastal areas are seafood lovers. This goes to such an extent that, some people call all seafood as “vegetarian” :)). I have seen some people who eat fish 6 days a week. One day -usually Saturday or Monday, are purely vegetarian. Some have started eating chicken from the last one generation, but still seafood wins hands down. I think it is mainly because we get very fresh river as well as sea fish as we live on the coast. Not that all the Konkanis are non-vegetarians, many are purely vegetarian, but today’s post is all about seafood lovers.
My Aayi was a vegetarian before her marriage. But after she got married, she started cooking as well as eating fish. Her fish dishes are just out-of-the-world. Usually all Konkani seafood dishes are served quite hot. At my home, we all love seafood. But SIL and I, not so much. Pappa and Aayi like it, but they won’t miss it if they don’t eat it for a while. My bro and husband are huge fans, so whenever they are at home, fish is cooked.
Everything changed for me after we moved to US. I have tried lot of different seafood here. But it is never the same. Our local Chinese grocery store has some “known” fishes but most of the time they are spoiled by the time I bring them home. Since they are frozen, the taste is never the same even if I buy the freshest looking fish. I thought it was because the way I cook them, but when Aayi visited us last year, she tried and the result was same. They just don’t taste good.
So when we visited India in March, we were all set to eat some of our favorite fish dishes. The day we reached Bangalore, my bro took us to “Fish Land” – An old style restaurant near Majestic, which serves Konkani style sea food. For the first time, I finished everything in my thali (that’s an achievement, if you know me). Then we went to seafood heaven. Our native. Aayi prepared us everything that we loved. So I decided to write this post and clicked few pictures.
This is one of the favorite Konkani seafood thalis which everyone loves. Writing about this is like a torture for me as I know I won’t be able to eat it until I visit India again :(. But anyway, I want it on this blog, so here it goes.
– Plain rice (some people like to serve boiled rice/matta rice but at my home, we always eat white rice) – Alle kande ambat – Kokum kadi – Bangde dhoddak – Bangde fry – Mango pickle – Onion rings and lemon
Whole green chilies are one of the constituents of many North Karnataka meals. It is usually served with Jolad rotti or sajjige rotti . Many times it is replaced with mirchi bajji – green chilies dipped in gram flour mixture and deep fried. In the Karavali (coastal) belt of Karnataka, usually this taaka mirsang (Konkani) or majjige menasu (Kannada) – green chilies soaked in buttermilk( taak / majjige ), sun dried and then deep fried, are very popular. Most of the Konkani functions include this along with other deep fried sun dried items like papads, fritters( vadis ) etc. These chilies are very popular in other parts of South India too.
I usually make a huge batch of these chilies every year. I use a local variety called as Gokarn chillies which are light green, plump. The light green ones are mild and dark green ones are more spicy. I usually select the ones with medium heat. They are usually available after rainy season – from December onwards.
Traditionally these are deep fried in hot oil. Many people avoid eating these chilies due to this. My grandmother used to shallow fry them in a little ghee on a low flame. This requires only a little oil/ ghee . Ghee gives a very nice aroma, this is feasible only when a small quantity of chillies are needed.
At my home, everyone likes to eat it with plain curd and rice. It gives nice spice and taste to bland curd rice.
We have two methods of making taaka mirsang . In both, some additional flavoring is used which gives a very nice aroma to the chillies. Infact there is a third method in which these additional flavorings are not added. In method-1, some spices are added to the buttermilk and then the chillies are soaked in them. In method-2, chillies are soaked in plain buttermilk(with salt) dried and then the ground spices are applied to them. Both have their own taste. I usually follow method-1 as the chillies prepared with method-2 do not remain tasty for a long time.
Ingredients: 1 kg green chilies 1 liter buttermilk 6-7 tea spns salt (depends on the kind of salt used, so be careful while adding it)
Preparing chillies: Wash the chillies. Trim the stem( thottu ) into half. Put a deep cut into chillies taking care not to slit them completely.
Method-1: Make a powder from 2 tea spns cumin seeds, 1/2 tea spn fenugreek seeds, 1/4 tea spn asafoetida. Add this powder and salt to the buttermilk. Immerse the chillies in this buttermilk overnight and next day, take out the chillies and dry them under hot sun.Do not discard the buttermilk. In the evening, put them back in the same buttermilk. Next day, dry them again. Repeat this procedure for about 4-5 days. By this time, all the buttermilk is soaked by the chillies and the spices give a very nice aroma to it. Once all buttermilk has been done, dry the chillies for 3-4 days more till they are completely dried and become crispy. Store in airtight container after they have cooled to room temperature.
Method-2: Immerse the chilies in buttermilk with salt. (No spices added at this stage). Continue soaking and sun drying them as above till all the buttermilk is done. Soak 6 tea spns of urad dal and 1 tea spn fenugreek seeds in water for an hour. Grind them to a smooth paste. Smear this paste on the chillies and sun dry for 3-4 days more.
Serving: While serving, deep fry them in hot oil or shallow fry in ghee /oil and serve. These fried chillies remain good for 5-6 days in air tight containers.
Pictorial: Chillies slitted ready to soak in buttermilk
Chillies after drying for 3 days and soaked in buttermilk, ready to be dried again
After all the buttermilk has been soaked, ready for 3 days of continuous drying
