Saturday, September 15, 2007

MASALA KATHAL - RAW JACKFRUIT CURRY

This is a delicacy from Northern parts of India. Where in part of the country the Jackfruit is consumed as a fruit, the other part has it as a vegetable!! In Southern India "chakka" is something to die for, whereas in the Northern India, I have seen people make faces at the mention of having jackfruit as a fruit. They dont know really what they are missing up on - do they??? In Kerala, they would discard the tender jackfruit as a waste not knowing what to do with it, & oblivious of the fact that they could cook up an excellent subzi with it. Now I wonder which part of the Nation is more at loss - South or North?? Maybe you could help me solve this puzzle..........

While you think on this subject, I am giving below the recipe.

Ing -

1/2 kg - really really raw jackfruit.
3/4 onions - sliced finely
4 tomatoes - pureed
1 tsp - garlic paste
1 tsp - ginger paste
1 tbsp - garam masala
1 tsp - haldi / turmeric
1 tsp - red chilli powder
1/2 tsp - amchur / dry mango powder

Method -

Discard the skin of the jackfruit, remember take out only the green skin part, let the base remain intact. Cut them into cubes about an inch wide.
Heat oil in a frypan & fry these cubes till golden in colour & remove on tissue paper to drain the extra oil
In a kadai, heat little oil & add the ginger / garli pastes. When fried well add the sliced onions. Let the onions be a pinkish brow. Add the tomato puree. Fry till oil separates.
Add all the masalas & fry for another minute or so.
Add in the fried jackfruit cubes & mix well till the masala is coated properly
Add about 1/2 a cup of water, close the lid of the kadai & let cook for about 3/4 minutes.
Open the lid & stir properly ensuring the gravy coats evenly on all the pcs.
Let any gravy dry up on high flame.

Goes excellently with chappatis / parathas. Believe me, when I say it really really tastes wonderful.

4 comments:

amna said...

reminds me of the chakka aviyal that amma makes :)

Shella said...

Nags - There you are, correcting me that South Indians do use the jackfruit in the tender form. I actually have never seen anybody use it, except "kada chakka", which I guess is a different form of chakka (I hope so). Do you have a recipe of the avial on your blog??

TBC said...

I like the sound of this curry a lot!
I normally use jackfruit a little differently. And here, we only get the canned version. Will try this out when I get a chance.

Shella said...

Thanks for dropping by dear. I guess this would do well with the canned variety. I saw pic of the canned one in a blog & it looked quite good to me.