What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you think of any Konkani wedding or thread ceremony lunch? It is obviously Airaawat (No, I am not talking about the white elephant ‘Airaawat’, Indra’s Chariot). It is a dish mostly prepared only for such functions. I haven’t seen people preparing it for day to day meals. But still, this is a must in the functions and absolutely loved by all. This dish has sour, sweet and spicy taste to it.
People have a lot of different recipes for this. This one is the version I got from a professional cook who cooked food during the Satyanarayan Pooja at our home. The airaawat was absolutely fantastic.
Airaawat
Ingredients
- Tamarind 1/4 cup or use 2 tea spns of tamarind extract
- Dates Kharjoor 8-10
- Jaggery Sugar 1 tea spn
- Red chillies 5-6
- Coriander leaves 4-5 strands
- Ginger 1" piece
- Salt
Instructions
- Grind all the ingredients to a smooth paste, add very little water if required. It should be of chutney consistency.
Airaawat
Ingredients
- Tamarind 1/4 cup or use 2 tea spns of tamarind extract
- Dates Kharjoor 8-10
- Jaggery Sugar 1 tea spn
- Red chillies 5-6
- Coriander leaves 4-5 strands
- Ginger 1" piece
- Salt
Instructions
- Grind all the ingredients to a smooth paste, add very little water if required. It should be of chutney consistency.
Few days back, one of my readers had asked about the famous “ambe-ananas sasam”. It took me some time to find good ripe mangoes to prepare this dish.
Like Airaawat , this is one more dish usually found in any Konkani functions (with mangoes during the mango season, otherwise only with pineapple). Go to any house, you will find one or the other dish with mango.
Mango is one friut I loved from my childhood, I have lot of memories with mango. We have about 20 mango trees in our garden. One of them is fondly named as Shilpa’s tree by my parents :).
Ingredients: Mango, pineapple pieces(one of them can be omitted) 1/2 cup Coconut 1 cup Mustard seeds 1/4 tea spn Red chillies 4-5 Tamarind extract 1/4 tea spn Jaggery/sugar 1 and 1/2 tea spn Salt
Method: Grind coconut, mustard, chillies, tamarind, jaggery and salt adding very little water (need not be ground into a very smooth paste). Add the mango, pineapple pieces. Mix well. Serve as a side dish with rice.
Serves : 2 Preparation time 10min
