Magge or moggem is a special kind of cucumber. It is widely used in cooking at our place. In Bangalore, it is sold as Mangalore Southekayi (cucumber), this is called Dosakaya in Telugu. This is usually cooked before consuming, but there are few recipes where tender magge is eaten before cooking. These sundried cucumbers or magge salli are very popular among Konkanis in our area. Tender magge which are called magge murto are used for this dish. Once the pieces are sundried with all the spices, they are served like pickle. They have a nice crunch to them. We used to make these very frequently when we grew magge in our backyard. These days were buy tender ones from sante (farmer’s market). These stay good for a week or so.
Pictorial: Cut magge and apply salt and sundry. Apply the spices and sundry again.
Sundried Mangalore Cucumber (Magge Salli)
Ingredients
- 4 cups Mangalore cucumbers magge/moggem
- 1 tea spn chilli powder
- 1/8 tea spn asafoetida powder
- 1 tea spn salt
Instructions
- Remove the seeds from magge. Do not remove the skin.
- Cut the magge into 3x3 inch pieces.
- Add and mix salt to the pieces.
- Sundry under very hot sun for 1-2 days (till they are half dried).
- Make a paste of chilli powder, asafoetida with just few drops of water.
- Apply the paste to half dried magge pieces and sundry them again for 2 days.
- Store in air tight container.
Notes
Sundried Mangalore Cucumber (Magge Salli)
Ingredients
- 4 cups Mangalore cucumbers magge/moggem
- 1 tea spn chilli powder
- 1/8 tea spn asafoetida powder
- 1 tea spn salt
Instructions
- Remove the seeds from magge. Do not remove the skin.
- Cut the magge into 3x3 inch pieces.
- Add and mix salt to the pieces.
- Sundry under very hot sun for 1-2 days (till they are half dried).
- Make a paste of chilli powder, asafoetida with just few drops of water.
- Apply the paste to half dried magge pieces and sundry them again for 2 days.
- Store in air tight container.
Notes
In Object Oriented Programming word, whenever there is clash between names, programmers prefix it with another name to make whole phrase unique. If there is a clash between function names, prefixing with object names them unique in that space. If there is clash between different objects of different classes, concept of namespaces comes to rescue. Prefixing with namespace resolves clashes when it comes to compiling. We do see this at many places in real life too. This generation of people at Kodkani used this so effectively to identify persons when there is such ‘identity crisis’. When my grandfather was alive, at my native there were multiple ‘Ram Annas’ working at different places. The Ram Anna who was working at post office was called ‘Post Ram Anna’. The other Ram Anna who was having shop called ‘Aangadi Ram Anna’(Aangadi means shop in Konkani/Kannada). There were multiple Mukund annas too. The one who lived in Aachari Hittal(an area in Kodkani) was called ‘Achari Hittal Mukundanna’, the other elderly person lived close to barron land and hence was referred ‘Bena vailo Mukundanna’. Such a simple concept was perhaps adopted while implementing compilers later!!
This recipe name must be quite puzzling. But this is how it is referred in my house as this recipe comes from a friend Venkat who is ex-colleague. He generally does not like eating outside his house and had invited us to his house once. This dish was prepared at his house and we liked and asked the name. He said for us chicken means this is it. When we say there is chicken today, it means it is only this chicken. We took recipe from him and in fact from his wife and prepared few times. It was liked by everybody. However as we prepare variety of chicken gravies and for us it is one amongst many gravies, we had to give a unique name – now over the years for us ‘Venkat’s chicken’ means it is this chicken gravy. This new brand was born few years back but recipe was perhaps established one at his place but certainly new to us.
Pictorial: Take the garam masala ingredients. Dry roast all the garam masala ingredients and grind to a powder.
Take gravy ingredients.
Fry onions, chilies. Add the chicken. Add the spices. Add the ground spice. cook for sometime and then coriander leaves.
Venkat Chicken Gravy
Ingredients
- 1/2 kg Chicken
- 1 cup grated Coconut
- 2 tb spns Ginger garlic paste we always prepare paste fresh and never use readymade paste
- 1 chopped medium sized onion
- 5 Green chillies
- 2 tbl spns Red chilli powder
- 1/4 tbl spn Turmeric powder
- 4-5 strands Coriander leaves
- Salt
- 4 or 5 tbl spns Oil
For Garam masala powder:
- 4 tea spns Coriander seeds
- 1 tbl spn Poppy seeds
- 2 pieces 2 inch Cinnamon
- 5 Cloves
- 2 Cardamom
- 2-3 Peppercorns
Instructions
- Heat 4 tbl spoons of oil in a pan.
- Add chopped onion and slit green chilies, shallow fry them.
- Add cleaned and washed fresh chicken to bowl. Fry for 10 minutes under light flame
- Add salt, turmeric powder, stir it and leave for 5 minutes.
- Add Ginger-garlic paste, chilly powder.
- Cook it for 5 minutes.
- Add water as per gravy requirement (until chicken pieces are immersed in water upto another 1/3rd of content, as gravy thickens later)
- Cook until water gets bubbles.
- Dry roast Garam masala ingredients mentioned above along with grated coconut and make powder. Add to the mixture above.
- Add salt and bring to boil.
- Add chopped coriander leaves.
- Cook it for 5 minutes and stop the flame (once the gravy turns thick).
- Serve with bread or rotis.
