On the occasion of the Tamil New Year, we usually make the raw mango pachadi. This traditional dish is made on the occasion is packed with 6 flavour of tastes like sweet, salt, spicy, bitter, sour and astringent. It is believed that eating this on the new year will ensure that the year ahead will be perfectly balanced with all flavours infused in your life. The dish signifies that life is a combination of different emotions like good, bad, happy, sorrow, victory and defeat and we have to face them equally. Jaggery is used for sweet, salt for salty, dried red chilli for spicy, neem flower or fenureek seeds for bitter, raw mango for sour and turmeric for astringent.

I made this recipe for the first time earlier this year during the Tamil New Year. Actually what triggered this recipe was my mother moaning that she had not been able to get hold of raw mangoes because of the situation in Mumbai and so since I had some mangoes, I decided to make them. It was a huge hit in my house and since then, I have made it a few more times, and each time, it has been gobbled up soon. It’s a very easy recipe and from start to end, should not take more than 30 minutes.

Raw Mango Pachadi

Ingredients:

• 2 medium sized raw mangoes
• ½ cup grated jaggery, (more or less depending on the sourness of the mangoes)
• ¼ tsp turmeric powder
• 1 pinch salt
• 1 tsp oil
• 1 tsp mustard seeds
• ¼ tsp fenugreek seeds or 1 tbsp fresh or dried neem flowers
• 2 dried red chillies, broken into half each

Method:

• Peel and chop the mangoes into largish pieces and then in a pan, add a bit of water, just enough to cover the mangoes, and the turmeric and cook till the mangoes are cooked, but still retain some of their shape.
• While the mangoes are cooking, in a separate pan, add the jaggery and 1-2 tbsps of water and let the jaggery dissolve into a syrup. Let the syrup cool down.
• When the mangoes are cooked, strain the jaggery syrup into the mangoes using a strainer. This is so that none of the impurities found in the jaggery make their way to the dish.
• Let the mangoes and jaggery come to a nice rolling boil. Add the salt, stir well and switch off the gas.
• Using a smaller skillet, heat the oil and when the oil becomes warm, add the mustard seeds, fenugreek seeds or neem flowers, dried red chillies and stir for a few seconds each before you add the next ingredient. Stir for about 10 seconds in total and pour this over the mango pachadi.
• Serve hot with any south Indian meal and enjoy a beautiful blend of flavours.
• Served cold, this can also be served as a cold salad or starter or even a dip with your starter.
• You can also cook the mangoes in a pressure cooker. If using a pressure cooker, cook the mango with a bit of water and turmeric and pressure cook for 2 whistles.