Mangana

Mangana is chana dal kheer with coconut milk. It was the first time ever I had heard this name at Valaval.

We make Chana dal puran but this was new to me. The coconut milk lends it a very delicate flavor and how it brings out the savoriness in a Sol Kadhi and the mellow sweetness in a Mangana is amazing.

Ingredients

1 cup Chana dal

Milk of 1 coconut

1/2 cup jaggery

1 tablespoon ghee

4-5 cardamom pods

1/8 cup cashews and raisins

Put the chana dal in a small pressure cooker. Wash it several times. Cover the dal with enough water, I used about 2.5 glasses and keep on heat for cooking. Allow 4-5 whistles. It should make the dal a mush.Put of the heat. After letting the cooker cool open the cooker. Mash the dal with the back of the spoon. It is ok to leave some dal whole. This rough mashing gives the kheer the desired texture.

Now heat a deep vessel. To it add the ghee. Add the dal and give it a stir. Add the jaggery and keep stirring till the jaggery is cooked. Take care the raw smell of the jaggery does not remain. Once that is done fry the nuts and raisin in very little ghee and add to vessel of chal dal and jaggery. Put of the heat and mix in coconut milk. Mix well when still warm. One should not add coconut milk when on heat. It might curdle. Lastly add the cardamon powder made by peeling the cardamom pods and crushing the seeds.

Serve warm. Enjoy the very rustic Malvani kheer.

Sol Kadhi

Sol Kadhi, gets it's name from the Kokum used to sour the coconut milk. Kokum is called Sol in the coastal regions of Maharashtra and Goa and a little upto Mangalore. Kokum is a tropical fruit which looks like a plum and the botanical name is Garcinia Indica.

It's a simple kadhi, very good for the appetite and balances the juices in the tummy when they are going haywire. It's even simpler to make when you have the coconut milk ready. The garnish just covers the whole kadhi green but ideally I would love to do the sol kadhi without the garnish as I hate all that garnish coming in the mouth making sol kadhi less sippable. But then if you don't garnish one might get fooled by the baby pink color and sip it like strawberry milkshake.

Sol kadhi is never to be confused due to the color. This curry is very subtle in taste and absolutely refreshing. Most people do not give it a tadka. However in home cooking I have seen both my Malvani SIL and Ghadigaonkar Tai, a Malvani to the core do a tadka. So that's the way I make it. However I have never seen hotels make a tadka. May be it is a shortcut they devised.

I have seen traditional home cooks use Kokum extract or what is called Agal. This extract is unsweetened and is stored for the year and used in cooking. Whereas I used Kokum sarbat  this time which is Kokum and sugar concentrate. The Agal is always stronger in taste and thinner. Whereas the Kokum sarbat is thick and milder, it is pale too. So when you use Agal use less and Sarbat you will need more. The taste of the sourness is balanced with jaggery when using Agal whereas additional sweetner is not required when using Kokum sarbat.

I have exhausted my stock of Agal but did have Kokum sarbat from Mangalore gifted to me by my dear friend Deepa. So I used that instead.

Ingredients

4 tablespoons Kokum sarbat (juice)

OR

2 tablespoon of Kokum extract (agal)

+ 1 small piece jaggery

Coconut milk of 1 coconut

1 green chili

handful of cilantro

few curry leaves

1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds

1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds

a pinch of asafoetida

1 teaspoon coconut oil

In a deep vessel make a tadka of smoking coconut oil, cumin seeds, mustard seeds, asafoetida, slit green chili and curry leaves. Add the cilantro to the hot tadka, so that the juices will flow out and will flavour the tadka. Add the kokum sarbat or agal. If you have the coconut milk separate in the thick and thin batches. Then add the thin coconut milk on the tadka in the vessel and warm it up a bit but do not boil. Now pour the thick coconut milk into it and stir to mix. Put off the heat. This dish is never boiled as the sour kokum separates the coconut milk into globules which look unappetizing. 

When using agal add the jaggery after the tadka and let it melt on heat then follow in by the coconut milk and put off heat.

Enjoy the Sol kadhi like a soup before the meal or drink along the meal or like the traditional way make it your main curry. That's what I did, see.

A Simple Malvani/ Gomantak Thali

And A Flashback To Valaval

It was the year 2001-02. I had this habit of writing my day's happening through mail to P. We would chat everyday for atleast an hour, 10 pm was when both of us would be online. I would have had my dinner and he would have lunch after talking to me. Most times the conversation would start with a "Zevlis?" from him. I would think c'mon everyday why does he have to ask me that! My take was intelligent people don't talk just about food. I was right we never did talk only about food but much more. Yet the conversation would begin on a foodie note. I'd console myself thinking poor guy he is missing Indian food in the US. He'd crib about eating pita bread with bhaaji, he didn't know the art of chapati making then.

Well that was the beginning when I started writing everyday. Sometimes he would wonder if I did not have anyone to talk to :)!  He wondered how I could write such long emails. His replies were most time couple of lines but at times a full page specially when he wanted to explain something to me especially after our tiffs.

Then one time I went with my family to Valaval. On return from the trip I wrote to him every little thing about the trip. I simply loved writing to him. That's when he had commented "Keep writing one day may be you will be a writer". I think this blog too is a result of those words of encouragement, actually he had meant to tease me, I think ;). I know my writing, technically is not super but blogs are meant for people like me. Public does not pay to read what I write and hence forgive the mistakes in the writing.

I do not have that email for reference which I had written to P about Valaval but I will narrate it from memory...

The most favorite dinner I had in Valaval on one of those 3 - 4days consisted of Sol kadhi, bhaat, batatyachya kachrya, bhaji and mangana that too served on a patravali and droN (dried leaf plates and bowl). It was completely different from all the Malvani coconut masala and garam masala dishes I knew. It was pretty light on the tummy too.

In the posts that follow I will share the recipes of Sol Kadhi and Mangana. These are two dishes based on coconut milk but completely different in character. One savory, the other sweet. Both are fantastic.

Sol Kadhi, Batatyachya Kachrya, Mangana and Moogache bhajji

Note: 

Malvani - means from the coastal region of Malvan, Maharashtra.

Gomantak - refers to origins in Goa.