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What's Cooking? Indian recipes
P.S. Lakshmi Rao, a retired banker, has a passion for cooking. Her friends and family enjoy her culinary delights. Lakshmi is a long time Atlanta resident.

<<What's Cooking? Main


Mango Pickles

June is the season for pickles, because we get good mangos for pickling. I get very nostalgic about my childhood days in India. We get so many different kinds of mangos in India, I am sure you all remember many varieties of pickles and chutneys our mothers and grandmas used to make. Well, I am trying to bring you these recipes after making them myself for several years on trial and error basis. No matter what brand pickle you buy in the store, they don’t taste as good as home made ones. If you spend one or two days preparing these pickles at home successfully, you and your family, especially your mother (when you tell her about the pickle) will be very proud of the adventure. 

Pulihora Aavakayi 

½ cup water boiled and cooled
½ cup mustard powder from red mustard seeds
2 green mangos
2 tablespoons salt
½ teaspoon turmeric (haldi)
½ cup red ground pepper
Mix water and mustard powder in a plate and let it dry for 5 hours at room temperature or in a warm place.
Cut mangoes with skin into small pieces (less than half inch). Some people peel the skin. Discard the seeds.
Mix mustard paste, salt, turmeric, and red pepper with mango pieces. Keep this in a glass bowl for two days. On the third day spread the pickle on a plate and let it dry in the sun or in the oven with pilot light on for four hours mixing two times. Keep the door open slightly for air to circulate. Next day make popu and add it to the pickle and mix. Put the pulihora aavakayi in a glass bottle after two hours. 

Popu or tadka
½ cup sesame oil or vegetable oil 
½ teaspoon methi seeds (fenugreek)
½ teaspoon red mustard seeds
1-teaspoon chana dal
1-teaspoon urad dal
2 stems washed and dried fresh curry leaves
2 pinches of hing (asafetida) (optional)

Heat oil in a small pan. Add methi seeds, mustard seeds, chena dal, and urad dal until the spices become light brown. Add curry leaves and hing (if using), fry for half a minute and add the spices to mango pickle and mix.
Note: Mango pieces stay fresh and tastes better if kept in the refrigerator.


Magayi



3 large green mangoes washed and dried
½ cup salt
1- teaspoon turmeric (haldi)

Peel mangoes and slice them to 1/4th inch thick and two inch wide slices. Mix mango slices, salt and turmeric in a glass container. Cover and keep them for three days mixing three times a day.
After three days separate mango slices from the juice and keep the juice in a small glass bowl without cover. Spread a clean cloth on a cookie sheet and place the mango slices on the cloth. Turn the oven light on. Place the cookie sheet with mango slices in the oven. Keep the oven door crack open with a pencil to have air circulation. Otherwise the mango pieces will be cooked.

If you have a nice back yard free from animals, birds, and dust you can dry mango pieces in the sun. Use only cloth to dry mangoes. Do not use any plastic wrap or aluminum wrap to dry mango pieces, because they don’t absorb the moisture from mango pieces as fast as the cloth.
You can also use a dehydrator to dry the mango pieces.
After the mango pieces are semi-dry but still wet, pour the clear juice in to the mango pieces and mix. Discard the bottom part of the thick liquid.

Spicing
1-tablespoon methi seeds (fenugreek) 
1-table red mustard seeds
¼ cup sesame oil or vegetable oil
½ -teaspoon hing (asafoetida)
½ cup of ground red pepper

Roast methi seeds in a small dry pan (without oil) in low heat until dark brown. Cool and make soft powder in a spice grinder. Keep it aside. 
Grind mustard seeds in the same grinder and mix with methi powder.
Heat oil in a pan and add hing. When the oil is cold, add red pepper, and methi mixture. Now add these spices to the mango pieces and mix thoroughly. 
Keep magayi in a glass bottle with plastic cap. Never use wet spoon to serve. Otherwise the pickle will be spoiled. 

(Optional) If you like, popu can be added to the pickle,

Popu or tadka
1-table spoon oil
10 methi seeds 
½ teaspoon red mustard seeds
2 red chilies whole or broken

Heat oil in a small pan, add methi seeds and brown them a little. Add mustard seeds and red chilies and fry until the seeds splatter. Add this mixture to the magayi pickle.
   
 

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