Muri Mixture

  I was very excited to see Jackfruit as this month’s Jhiva for ingrdients. I know what I wanted to make immediately but I didnt know where to get it from. I remember those summer days when my Mom used to warn us not to throw away the Jackfruit seeds so that she can make this curry. So my search for the panasa pikkalu (Jackfruit Seeds) began. I remember seeing green jackfruit and jackfruit in sugar syrup in the Indian grocery stores but never the jackfruit seeds. I asked around and some said I might get them in Srilankan stores and others asked me to try Chinese or Vietnamese stores. But I found them at lst in the frozen foods section of an Indian store that also carries Srilankan stuff.  So here comes the recipe.

Vegetables

2 cups of Jackfruit Seeds
1 small Bottlegourd

For the paste:
4 Tsp Mustard Seeds ( Avalu )
4 Red Chillies
1 Tsp Tamarind Paste
1/2 Tsp Turmeric
1 Tbsp Jaggery (Bellam)
2 Tbsp Nulapodi ( Sesame seeds powder. Can substitute this with roadted sesame seeds or peanuts)
1 Tbsp Cashewnuts
1Tbsp Coconut

Grind all the above ingredients to a very smooth paste adding very little water.

For the popu/Tadka

1 Tbsp Oil
2 Tsp Senagapappu / Chana dal
Pinch of Inguva /Hing
5-6 Curry Leaves

Method:

Cut the bottlegourd into small pieces. This should be about 1 cup of bottlegourd pieces. Boil the bottlegourd pieces with the jackfruit seeds, salt and little turmeric in a pressure pan. In the meantime make the ava / mustard seeds paste with the above ingredients. Heat oil in a pan and add the popu ingredients. Once the chana dal chenges its colour, add the boiled vegetables and the paste. Stir it in between. Continue cooking this till the raw smell of the paste goes away.
We use the same ava ( mustard seeds) paste to make all the ava pettina curries but this curry is my favourite. We make ava pettina curries with cabbage, anapakaya(bottlegourd), raw banana, kanda (elephant yam) and jackfruit seeds. Recipe is exactly the same for any vegetable.

   After musing for a while about starting my own blog, I decided to do it finally after reading about RCI in Latha’s Masala Magic. What better event to kick off my blog with than one about my own state’s cuisine? So here I start my blog with that one special thing everyone from Andhra craves for. Its the one and only Avakaya.

   Summer is the season for making Avakaya and storing them till the next summer. Making the traditional avakaya needs very good kind of mangoes which come into the market in India around the first week of may. Ugadi is the time ( mid march to mid april) when we start seeing mangoes in the market. So the time from ugadi till the new avakaya is ready in that summer( end of may – early june) is the time to enjoy some kinds of pickles because they cannot be stored for long periods. My mom used to make many differnt kinds of short term avakayas with mangoes like menthi mukkalu, pulihara avakaya and kotha avakaya.   Summer time is the time when we used to eat perugu annam with mavidi pandu ( mango) and one of these short term avakayas.

   So today I am starting my blog with a very simple Avakaya recipe. This pickle is not the traditional Mango pickle but equally tasty and comparatively very easy to make.  Its called Pulihara Avakaya. Its so called because the popu/tadka is exactly the same as we use for pulihara. This is my contribution to RCI Andhra Cuisine hosted by Latha of Masala Magic.

Here’s the Recipe:

 Ingredients:-

1 tsp Avalu/Mustard Seeds 

Pinch of Hing

2 -3 Red Chillies

1 Tbsp Senagapappu/Chana Dal

7 -8 Curry Leaves

 2 Tsp Nulapodi ( optional )

1 Tsp Avapodi / Mustard seeds powder

1 Tsp Turmeric Powder

Salt and Chilly Powder

 Oil

1 Raw Mango  

Method:

   Cut the Raw mango in to very small pieces as shown in the picture above. Add salt, chilli powder, turmeric, nulapodi and avapodi to it. Heat oil in a pan ( I used Nuvvula nune). Add chana dal, when it starts changing color add mustard seeds, hing, red chillies and curry leaves. Mix very well ans stire it in an airtight container. Mix it once every 10 – 12 hours for 2 days. Pulihara avakaya is ready to enjoy. It tastes great with peru annam ( curd rice) and with tiffins like dosa, upma etc. .

  Avapodi is nothing but powdered mustard seeds. Fry the mustard seeds without oil and grind it to make a very fine powder.

 Pulihara Avakaya is good for 10 days outside and one month, when stored in the refrigerator. This avakaya is so good that we finish it off before having to store it in the refrigerator.

 To start or not to? That was the question in my mind for the last 6 months. I couldnt decide if I could give my blog enough time with my busy schedule but I couldnt stop drooling over all those yummy food blogs out there and wish for my own!   

 The next dilemma I had was a proper name for my blog. After thinking about it for days I couldnt think of anything I would like better than “muri mixture”.  I come from the coastal district of Visakhapatnam ( Vizag ) in Andhra Pradesh.  Anyone who has ever lived or visited Vizag would know how famous the muri mixture on beach road in Vizag is. To me muri mixture is not just a food that I enjoy but it also symbolizes all the moments I have shared with my parents, sister and close friends and this blog is to remember those sweet memories and make new ones.