From last few days, due to weather change I am suffering from fever and a severe throat infection. Though fever went down soon, there is this weakness and my taste buds have gone for a toss. In this condition, I would be more than happy to make a great tasting, very easy to make dish in no time. That’s when I got this recipe from Pelicano. I tried it immediately and it tasted heavenly.
Here is what Pelicano said about this dish, “I thought of this delicious recipe the other day. I make it just once in a while when I can find pineapples that are very nice. It is from an old cookbook of mine called “premila lal’s indian cooking” 1968….It is an odd collection of recipes from all over India…and I know this one is from the south somewhere by its ingredients and methods. It is so delicious…I cooked apples in the gravy once too and they were splendid as well…The only thing hard to do is browning the onions evenly so as not to get a scorch taste, but I am sure you are good at this by now. Let me know if you try it out”.
“I don’t like it too mushy, so I don’t let it cook for too long. I keep checking for tenderness and hope no one notices that the dish is disappearing. The only thing is whatever you do, don’t use canned/tinned pineapple for this. The flavor is….well….you know all too well. Hope you enjoy”.
My reaction after tasting this dish??? Mmmmmmmmm………wah wah :). Thanks a ton Pelicano.
Ingredients: Pineapple (cut in bite size pieces) 1 large Coriander seeds 1 tea spn Red chilies 8 Ghee/oil 1 tbl spn Large onion (sliced fine) 1 Mustard seeds ½ tea spn Jaggery egg size lump Water 2 cups Salt
I used 1 cup of pineapple and ¾ cup of onion. To make it still faster, I used chili powder(1/2) tea spn and coriander powder(1/2 tea spn). Added just a ¾ tea spn jaggery to suite my taste. The quantity was enough for 2 people.
Method: Grind coriander and chilies to a paste. Heat ghee and add mustard seeds. When they start popping, add onion and fry till they turn slightly brown. Add pineapple, coriander/chili paste and fry just until well mixed. Add salt, jaggery and water. Simmer on a very low flame until the gravy thickens a bit. Serve with rice, puris or idlis.
Serves : 4-5 Preparation time : 30mins
Are you thinking how I started making Andhra dishes? I had some knowledge of it before, thanks to my friends. But it is the food bloggers who gave that extra push.
I always loved Gongura pickle in Andhra restaurants in Bangalore. But I never knew what it is made of, didn’t even know there is a plant called Gongura. After reading about different Gongura recipes, I even tried asking few Indians in a local farmer’s market about this plant (I didn’t know who they were, they might be thinking I was crazy :D). One fine day I saw Gongura pachadi in Arjuna’s blog. She even gave a link of Gongura(sorrel) plant on my request (Thanks Arjuna). Next time I went to Indian store, I could pick up this plant very easily.
There started my experiments with Gongura. I tried the Gongura pappu (I call all the Andhra daals as pappu because I don’t know the name). It was good. But last week, I wanted to make the pickle with it. I picked up a bottle of Gongura pickle in Indian store and read the contents. By the time I reached home it was 10PM, but still I gave a search in google and found this recipe in Bawarchi . I thought this had the similar ingredients as the ones on the pickle bottle in the store. So I gave it a try and it came out just superb.
A bowl of rice with ghee or curd and this Gongura pickle is something I survived on for 2-3 days :D. Currently I am feasting on this pickle, cauliflower pickle , mango pickle, lemon pickle and chili pickle. Mango and lemon pickles are the ones I got from India (Yes they are more than 1 year old but they taste heavenly). Who wants more than that?
Pictorial:
Gongura(sorrel leaves) pickle
Ingredients
- Ingredients:
- Gongura sorrel leaves 4 branches
- Sesame seeds 2 and 1/2 tea spn
- Urad dal 2 and 1/2 tea spn
- Fenugreek seeds 1/2 tea spn
- Coriander seeds 1 tea spn
- Cumin seeds 1 tea spn
- Red chilies 4-5
- Green chilies 3-4
- Oil 1 tbl spn
- Salt
- Seasoning:
- Oil 1 tea spn
- Mustard seeds 1/2 tea spn
- Chana dal 1/2 tea spn
- Urad dal 1/2 tea spn
- Red chilies 2-3
Instructions
- Separate the leaves from branches and fry them and green chilies in little oil till they are tender. Grind them into a paste.
- Dry roast sesame seeds, urad dal, fenugreek seeds, coriander seeds, cumin seeds and red chilies. Powder them.
- Mix the spice powder with the paste. Add salt.
- Heat oil and add chana dal. When it becomes slightly brownish, add urad dal and mustard seeds. When they start popping, add red chilies cut into 2-3 pieces. Pour this seasoning over the pickle and mix well.
- Store in a air tight container in refrigerator.
