Manga Pachadi
The mandatory dish of the Tamil New Year (Puthandu) Iyer feast — raw mango, jaggery, neem flowers, green chilli and salt cooked together to balance all six tastes (shadrasa) of life: sweet, sour, salty, bitter, pungent, astringent. Eaten as the symbolic first course of the year.
Ingredients
- Asafoetida — 1 g
- Curry Leaves — 2 g
- Raw Mango — 200 g (cubed-with-skin)
- salt — 4 g
- dry red chillies — 1 g
- Coconut Oil — 8 g
- Neem Flowers (optional) — 2 g
- Mustard Seeds (Black) — 2 g
- green chillies — 6 g
- Turmeric — 1 g
- Jaggery — 80 g
Method
- Wash and cube 200 g raw mango with skin. Cook with 200 ml water, salt, turmeric and slit green chillies until mango is fork-tender (~10 min).
- Add 80 g jaggery and the dried neem flowers (gently — they should not bitter the dish, just contribute kashaya rasa).
- Simmer until the pachadi thickens and the mango pieces glaze with jaggery (~5 min). The texture should be sticky-glossy, not runny.
- In a tempering pan, heat 8 g coconut oil. Splutter mustard seeds, dried red chilli, asafoetida and curry leaves.
- Pour tempering over the pachadi. Switch off. Serve as the first course of the Puthandu sapadu — symbolises six tastes/experiences of life.
Common questions
- How many calories in one plate of Manga Pachadi?
- 130 kcal per plate.
- How much cooking time?
- 27 min — 12 min prep, 15 min cooking.