Mango Kadhi, Manga Morkootan from Southern India
Manga Morkootan is a delicious coconut gravy based side dish made with semi ripe mangoes. This is widely consumed with rice during summer season when mangoes are found in abundance in entire India. If you want to know what wonders a spoonful of methi can do, this recipe is a must try. Made with very simple paste, this is a true flavor blasting classic recipe from Kerala.If you use fully ripe mango in the same recipe, this becomes Pulissery. Idiyappam and Pulissery is a classic combination from Thiruvananthapuram.
Equipment
- Vitamix Blender
Ingredients
Ingredients for Paste
- ¼ tsp sesame oil
- 1 tsp Fenugreek/Methi seeds.
- 3 nos Dry Red chillies Use 2 if the size is large.
- ½ cup fresh coconut, grated
Ingredients for Tadka
- 1 tbsp Sesame Oil
- ½ tsp fenugreek seeds/Methi
- ½ tsp Black Mustard Seeds
- 2 nos Dry Red chillies
- 1 sprig curry leaves
Other Ingredients
- 1½ cup Semi Ripe Mango slices. Can use any variety from semi ripe to very ripe. If using very ripe, then adjust the quantity of jaggery accordingly.
- 1 cup thick yogurt.
- ¼ cup jaggery can use unrefined brown sugar.
- 1 tsp turmeric
- 2 tsp salt
Instructions
Make Paste
- Heat 1/4 tsp sesame oil. Add fenugreek seeds and red chillies.
- Roast fenugreek seeds and red chillies till fenugreek turns crisp, pink and nice aroma comes. This will roughly take 2 mnts.
- Turn off flame and add grated fresh coconut.
- Put everything into a small Blender Jar. Add ½ cup water and make a smooth paste. Keep aside for later Use.
- Paste should be smooth and should have flowing consistency.
Cook together
- Peal a large mango (preferably a semi ripe one) and cut thin slices and measure about 1½ cups.
- Put mango slices in a pan. Add 1 cup water.
- Add Turmeric
- Mix everything and let cook for 5 mnts on medium flame.
- Cover and let cook till mangoes turn pulpy. Depending on the variety of mango, it may take anywhere from 10 minutes to 15 minutes to achieve this texture.
- Mash the pulp with the help of a masher. you can leave some chunks if you like. If you prefer very smooth consistency, then you can even blend this pulp to a fine puree. But my preference is to mash with a masher so that it is neither too fine nor too chunky.
- Add some water. You can wash off blender jar with 2 tbsp of water and add that to gravy.
- Add Salt.
- Add jaggery.
- Lightly whisk a cup of yogurt.
- Whisk Yogurt lightly and add to this mango gravy just when bubbles start to form. Keep the flame low.
- Within few minutes, you will see bubbles forming. This is the right time to turn off flame. If you let the gravy boil, the yogurt will curdle. So let everything simmer on low flame and turn off flame as soon as bubbles form. Keep a close eye.
Tadka
- Heat a small Tadka pan and add sesame oil.
- add black mustard seeds.
- When Mustard seeds splutter, add fenugreek seeds and Red chilli and immediately turn off flame since fenugreek burns very soon.
- Add a sprig of curry leaves.
- Pour Tadka over Mango Gravy.
- Serve with steamed Kerala Matta Rice as a main course for Lunch. A side dish of any roasted vegetable is a good combination to eat with this.
Notes
This recipe tastes best with Semi ripe mangoes since they are naturally sweet and sour. But if you make this recipe with fully ripe mangoes, then adjust the quantity of jaggery since fully ripe mangoes may be sweeter than semi ripe ones.
Make sure that the coconut paste has a runny consistency otherwise it will form lumps when you add it to hot mango gravy.
Fenugreek cooks very fast. So keep a close eye while roasting fenugreek and turn off flame as soon as it turns crisp and pink. Also, nice aroma comes when fenugreek is properly roasted.