Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Mandi Vendakkai Mochai Mandi


This is a Chettinad special curry or side dish (as it can be used as both) which for sure will find its place in all special lunch served in chettinad. As it won’t get spoiled fast it is taken as side dish for picnics. My brother is a big fan of this curry but I have not bothered even to taste that till I myself prepared it. As ladies finger and potato will be seen as pieces along with long green chilies without any color to the gravy, I thought the taste also will also not be great.
For a long time this recipe is due from my side as some of my readers are eager to know about this dish, and I was little hesitant to write about this as I have never prepared this. For my readers sake I got the recipe from my mother and thought I will try 2 or 3 times and when it comes good I will blog the recipe. To my surprise it was awesome in my first trial itself. As I didn’t take the snaps first time, I had to make it again to write about it. This time also I made it very good. My daughter just loved it and started asking me why I never prepared this. Thanks to my readers as I found out another dish which my child loves. Each vegetable in the mandi got all the 3 tastes (salt, sour, hot) and tasted excellent with curd rice and the little gravy in the dish was also excellent.
The main difference in this curry to the other curries we make is that, we use green chilies instead of chili powder for the hot taste. Instead of water we use ‘Arisi Mandi’( the water we get while washing rice) for making the gravy. I guess it is this water which gives so much taste to the gravy. If we prepare this dish on days in which we soak rice for idly we can get thick mandi. (I used just the water taken from 1 ½ cups of rice).
For taking the water, just wash rice once, pour of the water and soak the rice in two cups of water for 5 minutes then drain the water and keep aside.
Mandi it is said can be made using all vegetables but I guess this combination will be the best since I have seen only these vegetables usually .If mochai is not there also no problem.I didnt soak the mochai the previous day,so made the curry without that.There was not much difference in taste


Ingredients
Ladies finger-6
Small onion-20
Garlic-15 pods
Tomato-1
Green chillies-4 to 5
Potato-1
Arisi Mandi-2 cups
Mochai(white one)-a hand full(It should be soaked overnight)
Tamarind-a small piece (as shown in the snap)
If you have Manga vathal soak 5 vathals in hot water and add while adding mochai to the curry. In that case reduce the amount of tamarind used.

Method
Pressure cook mochai for 1 whistle and keep aside. Keep the kadai in the stove. In 2 teaspoon oil season with little mustard, curry leaf and fennel seeds. Add the chilies, chopped onion and garlic pieces and sauté for 2 minutes. Now add the ladies finger and sauté nicely for another 3 minutes. After this add the tomato, mochai and potato pieces, put little turmeric powder and pour 1 ½ cups of Arisi mandi and cook in medium flame. When the potato pieces are cooked add the salt and tamarind soaked in ½ cup of Arisi mandi. Let the mixture boil for 3 minutes after tamarind is added. The curry should be semi solid (neither too watery nor too thick).If you are going to keep it for a day without refrigeration then don’t use tomatoes

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