I started out my weekend with a plan. The plan was to prepare the famous Andhra mango pickle, ‘avakaya’, for next week’s JFI. You know about pickles. To prepare and present it, you need to make it at least one week in advance. So, I went to Pittsburgh and picked out the greenest mangoes available at one of the Indian grocery stores. The mangoes were very green and hard and so I was confident that they were unripe. On Sunday, I was in full pickle making mode. Cleaned out the kitchen, dried out any signs of moisture from counter tops and prepared all the essentials – mustard seed powder and red chilli powder. I was all ready to make pickle. But alas…
As often happens with the best laid out plans, things went awry. In this case, green, hard and thought to be unripe mangoes, when cut open, were ripe inside. The flesh was pale yellow and the taste was not very sour. I had to drop my plan to make pickle. Instead of going down the path of questioning my life in US, where I can’t even prepare my favorite pickle, I picked up my spirits and quickly found a use for my not so green, not so ripe mangoes. I remembered Mika’s comment about her way of preparing mango rice with coconut and also her recently blogged mango rice recipe. I had all the ingredients, including a fresh, decent coconut. Viola… the life in US looked much better.:)
I tried out the mango pulihora with coconut and mustard powder. Between the tangy sweetness of mango+coconut and the sharp, zesty flavor of mustard+chillies, the taste of pulihora was so unique and irresistible. I was glad that I tried this recipe, this one is a keeper. Thanks Mika.
Fresh coconut, Green Unripe Mango, Mustard Seeds and Green Chillies
Recipe:
(steps written in order of preparation)
Cook Rice:
1 cup of rice in 2 cups of water.
(I prepared it with Sona Masuri Rice)
Finely Powder:
2 teaspoons of mustard seeds – using a spicemill or coffee grinder
Make a Paste:
1 medium sized green unripe mango – peeled and cubed
½ cup of finely chopped fresh coconut
8 to 10 small green chillies
Grinding the mango, coconut and green chillies
Heat and Toast:
1 teaspoon of peanut oil, in a big sauté pan.
¼ cup of peanuts to golden brown color and remove.
Do the Popu or Tadka:
Add another teaspoon of oil or ghee to the same pan. Do the popu by toasting one teaspoon of each – cumin, mustard seeds, urad dal, chana dal, few pieces of dried red chillies and curry leaves.
Sauteeing the ingredients
Add and Sauté:
To the popu, add the
Mustard seed powder,
Smooth mango-coconut-chilli paste,
1 teaspoon of turmeric and salt.
Stir and sauté this mixture for 3 to 5 minutes on medium heat, until the mango paste leaves its raw smell. Don’t overcook, that would kill the precious mango flavor completely. Stir in the toasted peanuts that were kept aside. Switch off the heat.
To this sautéed mixture, add the cooked rice. Mix thoroughly and serve. The pulihora should taste little bit tartly because of unripe mango, sweet due to coconut, spicy strong because of chillies and mustard powder.
Mango-Coconut Pulihora
great
Comment by Anonymous — April 24, 2006 @ 2:03 pm
This rice looks yummy with the coconut touch!!!, but I do wish those mangoes pretty ready for avakkai pickle,, I love them 🙁 I wish you get them real good during your next pittsburg trip 😉
Indira replies:
Me too, thanks Karthi.:)
Comment by Karthi Kannan — April 24, 2006 @ 2:38 pm
Indira:
Sorry to hear about the avakai story. Hopefully next time you will be able to get good avakai mangoes!
That pulihora btw, looks yummy. My mom makes mango and coconut pulihora but she doesn’t grind them together. She just grates them seperately and then does it the same way sauteeing and mixing it with rice. I will have to try this new method next time.
Indira replies:
Otherwise I’d have never tried this new recipe, so no loss. 🙂
If I had more patience, I’d have had done that exactly like you mentioned. Instead I chose the easy route, grinded the whole thing. Adding the mustard powder gives this pulihota, special, unique taste. Try it, LC. I am sure you are going to be surprised like me about how good it tastes.
Comment by Luv2cook — April 24, 2006 @ 2:45 pm
I am going to try this out today. I bought mangoes yesterday for JFI, and have one more to spare for any other recipe. Thank you for the recipe.
Archana
Indira replies:
Looking forward to your participation in JFI, Archana.
and You are welocme.:)
Comment by Archana — April 24, 2006 @ 3:00 pm
Hi Indira ,
Very nice. I will definetly try this pulihora. Photos are really good.
Thank You.
Vineela
Indira replies:
Thanks Vineela, give it a try and let me know how you like it.
Comment by vineela krishna — April 24, 2006 @ 3:15 pm
Ohmygod Indira..I had the same experience with my mango (and for Jihva too)! I thought such a vivid green couldnt possibly be ripe and they were all yellow flesh inside 🙁
I made mango salsa out of mine, went to another store, picked up a green mango and made the dish I wanted. I was lucky the second time around. Cant wait for May 1 🙂
Indira replies:
Tell me about it. I was so bummed yesterday.:)
Mango salsa – yum!
I am verymuch excited already for May 1st and that’s going to be our solidarity day.(May 1st) 🙂
Comment by Ashwini — April 24, 2006 @ 3:42 pm
Hi Indira, my mother-in-law told me about this mango-coconut combination the last time I talked to her about your mango pulihora…and well, here you are with the recipe..thank you! I’m definitely going to make this soon…
Indira replies:
Hi Nabeela, where are you from?
I read your comment about parappu usli, sorry to hear about what happened. Stuff like that happens, don’t give up and try, try again until you perfect, that’s the way I learned my cooking. And blaming it on recipe or me, won’t do you any good.
Once in a while, going out for dinner is a good thing. I hope you had a lovely evening.
Comment by Nabeela — April 24, 2006 @ 4:17 pm
Indira, I tried your mango pulihora and turned out so tasty. I got mangoes this week to do the recipe again. You have come up with another recipe with mango and coconut. Going to try this week:)
Indira replies:
This version tastes even better, Priya. Give it a try. Mustard powder, coconut, rawmango are so good together.
Comment by Priya — April 24, 2006 @ 5:33 pm
Oohhh Indira i felt your pain… Please do share the avakaaya recipe,, I live of Priya pickles and would love to try it at home…
Your alternate recipe looks wonderful….
**Anu**
Indira replies:
Thanks Anu. I’ll certainly post the recipe one of these days.:)
Comment by AnuShah — April 24, 2006 @ 5:43 pm
Your site is the most awesome site ever. Keep up the good work. I love how you have pictures of the ingredients. Before and After pictures its awesome.
– Rahul
Indira replies:
Thanks!
Comment by Rahul — April 24, 2006 @ 7:17 pm
That’s a different variety of mango, which has been showing up here in the states only the last few years. I’ve heard the name but don’t remember it right now. As you found out, the skin remains green when they ripen, although they sometimes develop a bit of an yellow-ish blush. The more significant difference is that they’re less fibrous than the typical import mango, although not quite as creamy as those comma-shaped ones. (Sorry, I don’t remember the name of that variety either!)
Once I saw some of the green variety from California, at twice the typical size – the American SUV of mangos!
Indira replies:
For us, green means – unripe, raw mango. Not anymore, it seems.
SUV mango – I bet it tastes horrible.
Comment by alex — April 24, 2006 @ 9:22 pm
I had to try it the minute I saw this recipe. Fantastic! I used basmati rice and whole cashews as a variation. Eaten with vadam, divine!
Indira replies:
I agree, this version is really divine. We had it with some yogurt. After stuffing myself with pulihora, I went straight to sleep and I don’t usually sleep during day time. That good. 🙂
Thanks for the feedback, Ammani. Glad you liked it.
Comment by ammani — April 25, 2006 @ 7:08 am
This has happened to me too many many times. I think if you buy from Indian stores,the small green mangoes,it sure will be sour and right for pickles!
Indira replies:
The small ones are at 5 dollars a pound, so decided to go with the big, green ones. For my next buy, I’ll certainly going to buy the small ones, pricy or not. 🙂
Thanks for the tip, LG.
Comment by L.G — April 25, 2006 @ 8:37 am
5$ /lb??????????????/
Thats so very expensive indira..
I know would have minor heart attacks every time I buy at that price….
Never ate a combo of mango and coconut.
Have one raw mango with me. Will give this a try.
Comment by Santhi — April 25, 2006 @ 11:47 am
Is it sour mango, can sweeter ones be used? I am sensitive to sour stuff.. My tooth is..
Comment by tony — April 25, 2006 @ 12:35 pm
eh! I am not on ur blogroll!!!
Comment by tony — April 25, 2006 @ 12:40 pm
Hi,
This rice variety is new to me. Surely i am going to try it.
Comment by menutoday — April 27, 2006 @ 8:22 am
Indira, I made the pulihora yesterday and it turned out *excellent*! As I have said on AS, I’ve used so many of your recipes now and am really learning a lot. I used much fewer chillis, but that’s about it. Thanks once again.
Indira replies:
This one is a keeper, isn’t it? I loved this coconut-mustard powder version, all thanks to Mika.
I am glad you liked it too, DK.
Vijay was not feeling well, when I prepared this recipe and he wanted the ‘pulihora’ extra spicy, so the large number of chillies.:)
Thanks for letting me know, I really appreciate it.
Comment by desiknitter — April 29, 2006 @ 10:39 am
Looks delicious Indira, I am gonna try this for sure!
Comment by veda — April 29, 2006 @ 11:12 pm
Indira,
tried this recipe yesterday, and tasted awesome. Mustard powder gives a very distinguishable tang, i am not familiar with in a rise dish. But i loved it, and will make it whenever i buy mangoes. My favorite mango rice recipe so far…Kudos to you…
Comment by Archana — April 30, 2006 @ 1:52 pm
Hey Indira
this is incidentally a festival dish in southern part of karnataka, very much forgotten now a days!! i mean the spirit of festivals . thank u for reviving some fond memories associated with this dish. in fact the only difference with the way it is done is the mango is blended into smooth paste but but grated and added.
Comment by maddy — March 25, 2007 @ 3:01 am
Really great! Loved it and luckily living in India ca get lovely sour mangoes. Will make it almost 3-4 times a week till the raw mangoes are available.
Comment by mira sikand — June 3, 2007 @ 6:23 am
My husband bored of eating regular tamarind pulihore. He asked me to try different tamarind rice for tomorrows festival “DEEPAVALI”.I’m trying this one. Thanks U very much
Comment by Padmini — November 4, 2010 @ 7:46 pm