Fruity Sasam

Lipsmacking! Sweet, Sour, Pungent and Salty. Why should it not taste delicious. The fruity fresh sasam is such a traditional salad in Konkani cuisine.

We enjoyed this with Dalitoy and Steamed rice, plain and simple. Clean fresh flavors.

I had heard a lot about sasam but got the first tasting only in Mridula's Wedding. We Koli's make Kairichi Amti but then the star there is raw mango as the name suggests. Here in the sasam it is ripe mango. I love ripe mango so much that we always have it straight, no fuss. At the most as aamras and BTW just the pulp, no extra sugar, elaichi, tup for me in my aamras. That was unlike a Maharashtrian.

Last week I saw a can of mango pulp. Believe it or not this is the first time I am tasting canned mango pulp. That itself is breaking of the ceiling for me. Once before I had tasted canned pineapple and had resolved to eat fruit only in the freshest form. Cans were out. Then life changes and I eat my words.

Well with a canned mango pulp now in the fridge I had to make something special. The can does not mention Alphonso mango, so I feel guilty of using it for something other than eating it plain but plain canned pulp does not taste the same as fresh.

So I set out to try sasam. I followed the recipe from one of my favorite blog Food for thought. I also want to pull out Ashwini from blog slumber. I loved the recipe. but I did not give it a tempering like she does. Also I noted that the sasam in Mridula's wedding was more pungent with mustard paste. The mustard fights for stardom with the tropical fruits like mango and pineapple. Also since I used pulp this kinda gave it a slightly gooey consistency.

Ingredients

1 cup ripe mango pulp
1 cup pineapple cubes
1/2 cup purple grapes

For the paste

1 green chilli chopped fine
1 teaspoon jaggery
salt to taste
3-4 tbsp coconut, grated
1-2 dry red chillies
1 tsp mustard seeds (I need more so have adjusted this to a point of reference)

The lazy me. I take a short cut. I grind all those ingredients into a coarse paste.

In a big bowl mix all the fruits and mango pulp along with the above ground paste. Adjust the salt. Keep it low on salt to get the jaggery taste to stand out.

Its ready for a slurp. Sunny flavors in the midst of winter months is good for the moods.