Mahanandi

Mango and Strawberry - The King and Queen of Fruit Kingdom

RP of ‘My Workshop’ commented that if mango was the king of the fruits, strawberry could be the queen of fruit kingdom. Very true, indeed. The kind of fervor we, Indians, reserve for mangoes is often shown for strawberries by the people here in the States. Romance, weddings and any special occasions of life… there come the strawberries.

The delicate ruby red beauties, the queens of berries, strawberries are high maintaince as queens should be. They don’t like to be crammed and they need a certain temperature for their beauty regime. If it is too hot, they will get spoiled within a day. Too cold, their flavor becomes elusive. Divas and prima donnas, with a mind of their own, they are the attention grabbers. Color, shape and smell… nothing subtle about them, except may be their sweet flavor. Though looks red and bulky, the supermarket variety is more tart than sweet. One has to have a taste of Indian mangoes to know how good mangoes are. Just like mangoes, one must taste freshly picked strawberries from farms or from open meadows to really know how good they are to understand the reason for fervor. Fortunate are those, who have tasted the real things in this life.

Here is a recipe showcasing them both - popsicles or ice pops of mango and strawberries.

Mango and strawberries with little bit of limejuice and little bit of sugar - blend, pour and freeze - homemade popsicles for hot summer days would be ready. Who doesn’t have memories of hot summer days and colorful popsicles?

Recipe:

2 mangoes - peeled, cut and seed removed, finely cubed
15 to 20 strawberries - stems removed and cut into half
Sugar to taste
2 tablespoons of limejuice
****
Blender
Popsicle mold with sticks or popsicle sticks and small cups
Refrigerator

1 Prepare Mango Juice: Take mango cubes in a blender. Add a tablespoon of sugar (adjust depending on the sweetness of mangoes) and a tablespoon of limejuice and blend into smooth puree.

2 Prepare Strawberry Juice: Take strawberries in a blender. Add a tablespoon of sugar (adjust depending on the sweetness of strawberries) and a tablespoon of limejuice and blend into smooth puree.

3 Making Popsicles: Pour the juice into popsicles mold or small cups in a tray. You can prepare at least 4 different types of ice pops with these two juices. Plain strawberry, plain mango, mango (bottom half)-strawberry (top half) and strawberry (bottom half)-mango (top half) combinations. If you are using the cups, then place popsicle sticks into cups. Freeze for at least 6 hours or overnight.

4 Popsicle time: Place the tray in hot water for few seconds and pull out the pops from the molds or cups. Enjoy!

Saying Goodbye to Mango Month and Welcoming the Strawberry Month with Mango-Strawberry Popsicle

Strawberry Popsicle for JFI~Strawberries

Green Beans, Shelled Indian Beans, Baby Lima Beans

Here in the US, farmers’ markets are usually bursting with fresh green beans during this time of the year. When we first moved here, during my getting to know the US veggies better phase, regular staple in my kitchen was curries and pulaos prepared with frozen green beans. Frozen green beans are cheap, already cut and cook easily. Taste not that good, still I bought them. But after a year of frozen stuff, I had enough and I’ve sworn off green beans entirely. Then, I discovered the farmfresh green beans of springtime and how good they tasted. From then on, along with radishes, beans became a springtime staple at my home.

My recipe here is same as the old classic, the favorite of Indian cookbook authors, where beans are cut into quarter inch length pieces, saut?ed with onions and green chilli-coconut paste. To this basic recipe, I have also added two other types of shelled beans to increase the nutritional value as well as taste. The shelled Indian beans (Papdi Lilva, the middle ones in the photo above) are available in frozen section of Indian grocery shops here, year round and baby lima beans; you could get them from regular grocery shops. They both taste little bit sweet and starchy, compliments the mildly woodsy taste of fresh french beans.

Sauteing the three-bean curry

Recipe:

Fresh Green beans - 2 cups of chopped quarter-inch length pieces
Shelled Indian broad beans - ½ cup
Baby lima beans - ½ cup
Onion - 1, finely chopped
Green chillies- 4 to 6 and coconut powder, a tablespoon - made into smooth paste
Turmeric - ½ teaspoon
Salt to taste
For tadka or tiragamata:
1 tsp of peanut oil
1 tsp of mustard seeds, cumin, minced garlic and few curry leaves

Heat peanut oil in a kadai or a wide pan. Add and toast the tadka ingredients. Add and stir-fry the onions for about 2 minutes. Add the green beans, Indian beans and Lima beans. Cook, covered for about 5 minutes on medium heat. Beans will soften within 5 minutes by cooking in their own moisture, sort of like steam cooking. At this stage, stir in green chilli-coconut paste, salt and turmeric. Cover and cook on medium heat for another 5-10 minutes stirring in between. Serve hot with chapatis or with rice and dal.

3-bean curry with chapatis

More about Indian Bean Seeds, Papdi Lilva or Chikkudu Vittanalu - Here

Four Seasons Farmers and Flea Market, Youngstown, Ohio
(About six miles from my home in Boardman)

Boxes and Crates - Out of State Produce

Unloading the Produce

Shopping, Shopping

Flower Pots For Sale

Red Radish Bunches 3 for $1.25

Limes 6 for 1 Dollar

Hot and Fresh Kettle Popcorn - For the Ride Home

Fruits and Vegetables from Farmers Market - Pineapple, Cantaloupe, Grape Tomatoes, Beans, Bell Peppers, Red Radishes, Green Onions, Corn, Baby Red Potatoes and Limes
Total Money Spent - 12 dollars

Strawberries from Local Farms

This is our local Farmers Market in images, for Farmer’s Market Parade hosted by Melissa of Cooking Diva.

Sandwich Fillers and Crunchy Side Snack
Hothouse Cucumber Slices Pickled in Lime juice, Salt and Black Pepper

This is a simple version of cucumber pickle that I often prepare at home. I usually prefer long, smooth, thin skinned cucumbers for this pickle. Mainly because they taste great and I don’t have deal with thick, ugly wax coating that is common on ordinary cucumbers.

How to:

Cut one cucumber into thin rounds.
In a bowl, squeeze 2 or 3 cut limes. To the juice,
Add and mix salt and black pepper powder to taste or about ¼ teaspoon each.
Add and toss the cucumber slices to coat with juice.
Store in a clean jar. Stays fresh upto two weeks, when refrigerated.

Going to be busy for few days for Memorial Day Weekend. Have a great holiday or a neat weekend, my friends!

My fondest childhood memories are of mealtimes at the home of my maternal grandparents where my grandmother- Annapurani in nature as in name- would whip up meal after magical meal prompting my late grandfather to often say in Sanskrit “Anna dhaata sukhi Bhava” (May the giver of rice be happy). If the story of a people’s deepest aspirations can be seen in their metaphor, then this poetic conflation of rice as food itself speaks volumes to the centrality of grain in the foodscapes of India’s many cultures.

One of the other remarkable features of the Indian subcontinent, is that depending on what filter or combination of these that you use- language, religion, culture, region, social identity, you could carve it up into a delightful array of unique variants of regional cuisines.

If I were to cite the major culinary influences that shape my own approach to cooking, I would pick out, as my example, my paternal grandmother Vathsala’s austere, methodical, cooking-with-what’s-on-hand-to minimize-waste? Kumbakonam Iyer style, with Annapurani’s elaborate, lavish, incredibly rich preparations shaped by her own life in Hyderabad and Bangalore; to my mother Jayanthi’s innovative style from her many travels, her tendency towards the fiery twists of her life in the Rayalseema region but always with a strong adherence to the authentic approach of her own paternal grandmother.

So when Indira asked me to guest blog, I could not think of a better tribute to my heritage and to the food grain that has sustained generations of my family, than the humble “Arisiuppma” with two of its popular variations “Thavalaadai” and “Pudikozhakattai”.

Ingredients:

(a) For the “Upma Odasal” or the cracked rice meal:
Rice- 1 cup (Using Brown basmati for this takes it to a whole new level of dense nutty chewy perfection but regular basmati or ay other rice especially par-boiled rice is quite acceptable and is the norm)
Urad Daal- 1 tsp
Toor Daal- 2 tsp
Dried red chilies- 4- 6 (depending on the level of spice tolerance)
Black peppercorns- 1 tsp
Cumin seeds- 1 tsp

(b) Tadka or seasoning:
Mustard seeds- 1 tsp
Urad dal- 1 tsp
Few Curry leaves
Green chilies- 3 to 4, chopped finely into rounds
Ginger root- 1inch, finely chopped .
Fenugreek seeds- Just a tiny pinch (optional)
Asafoetida- a pinch (the extract of the solid version soaked in water is ideal but the powdered form is acceptable too)
Sunflower oil- 1 tbsp (It is normally used but if you have the gutsJ, coconut oil tadka will make this dish quite ethereal.)
(c) Garnish:
Freshly grated coconut a fistful (can be omitted if it’s not preferred or my paternal aunt’s variation is to substitute it with sauteed onions)
(d) Salt to taste

Procedure:

1 In a blender/food processor coarse grind the ingredients listed under “(a)” to a cracked wheat consistency.

2 In a wide-bottomed pan, heat the oil and do the tadka.

3 Once the seeds start to sizzle and splutter, add fresh water in the proportion 1: 3 rice meal and water.

4 Once the water starts to boil, add in the coarsely grinded “(a)” list of ingredients and mix well.

Now when I made it this time, I had to ensure that my pipeline was effective since I was making three dishes with the exact same ingredients. Typically, one would only make one of the three preparations at any given time.

Up to step 4 above is common to all 3 dishes. After this point, the procedure diverges for each preparation.

When the mixture is well mixed and the water is just absorbed, take it off the heat. Depending on your heat tolerance, try not to let it cool down too much. Work rapidly using some cold water to wet hands and roll it into balls. Steam for about 8-10 minutes till done. A special twist here is to bury a smidgeon of jaggery in the center of this so you stumble upon a heart of sweet goodness as a surprise while biting into it.

After step 4, take it off the heat. Once it’s cooled down shape into patties and shallow fry on a griddle. Can be served with ketchup or any chutney if desired or just plain.

(Try as I might, I could not come up with a nifty English equivalent for this dish. Let’s hope this will enter the lexicon alongside the likes of Bulghur, Couscous and Cream of Wheat. )

Keep going from step 4 till the uppma is well done. To serve, especially for kids, a popular pairing is with some ghee and sugar. Pickle and yogurt is also a combination but mostly its just eaten plain and piping hot.

- Guest Post by Janani Srinivasan, Toronto
Jayasri Srinivasan - Ingredient lineups and picture arrangements
Dr.S.Ramachandran - Photographs

Before moving to US, we lived for about 2 years in Hyderabad, India. The capital city of my home state, Andhra Pradesh, lately known as Hi-Tech city, Hyderabad, has its own unique cuisine. A mishmash, a culinary amalgam influenced by people who migrated to this city from small villages, towns all over Andhra and from out of states on jobs, business and to work in political bureaucracy. Foodwise, you can get everything and anything there, almost:). Strong personalities and strong flavors are needed to survive in that city.

One such bold flavored recipe that I learned from a Hyderabad native, is this mango~sesame curry. Unripe mangoes are cooked in jaggery flavored sesame sauce. 3 strong flavors, unbeatable taste, perfect side dish for subtly bland naans/chapatis and puris.

Jaggery, Roasted Sesame Seeds, Unripe Mango ~ Three Strong Flavors

Recipe:

2 green, unripe mangoes - peeled, seed removed and cubed into bite sized pieces
1 cup sesame seeds - lightly roasted and powdered
¼ cup of jaggery - powdered
1 teaspoon of each - red chilli powder, salt and turmeric
For popu or tadka:
1 teaspoon of peanut oil
½ teaspoon of each mustard seeds, cumin and few curry leaves.

1 Heat peanut oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Add and toast cumin, mustard seeds, curry leaves.

2 Add mango cubes to the pan, stir in sesame powder, jaggery, chilli powder, salt and turmeric. Add about 2 cups of water and mix thoroughly.

3 Cover with lid and cook on medium heat for about 15 to 20 minutes, until the mango pieces soften and the sesame sauce comes together into medium-thick mass. Have a taste and adjust the salt, sweet, spicy levels to your taste. Cook for another couple of minutes and turn off the heat.

Serve warm with chapatis/naans or with puris and enjoy this unique curry of zinging taste.

Mango-Sesame Curry with Puris

Menthi, Methi, Fenugreek:

Picking from the Planter

Cutting into Small Pieces

Fresh, Flavorful Meal on a Sunday ~
Menthi Dal Mixed with Rice, and Mango Pickle

This is my contribution to “Green Blog Project” started and hosted by my favorite newbie food blogger, lovely and talented, an avid gardener from Zone-10, Inji Pennu of Ginger and Mango.

How Menthi Started - Here
Menthi Dal Recipe - Here