The vegetable used in Menaskai is usually bitter, sour or sweet. Depending on the taste of the main vegetable used, the remaining flavours are balanced. If you use sweet pineapple or mango, you would use less jaggery and if you use bitter or sour vegetables, less tamarind and more jaggery to balance out the taste.
Gorikai Menaskai
Ingredients Needed:
Cluster Beans / Gorikai / Goruchikkudukaya, diced into 1 inch - 1 cup
For the ground masala:
Fresh coconut - 2 cups
Dry red chilies - 6 to 8 nos
Black sesame seeds - 2 tsp
Oil - 1 tsp
Jaggery powder - 2-3 tbsp
Tamarind - 1 small marble size, soaked and pulp extracted.
Salt to taste
For the tempering
Oil - 2 tsps
Mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp
Garlic - 6-7 cloves
Dry red chili - 1 to 2
How to make Gorikai Menaskai
Cut the cluster beans into 1 cm pieces and boil it with a cup of water and salt to taste. Let the cluster beans get just cooked and not overdone.
To make the paste
Heat a pan with a tsp of oil, add red chilies, fry for couple of minutes. Then add sesame seeds and fry for a couple of seconds.
Next add the coconut and roast it all together till the coconut turns light golden. Let the mixture cool down.
Grind this spice mixture with tamarind, jaggery and about 1/2 cup of water. Grind everything into a very smooth paste adding more water if required.
To make the gravy:
Add the coconut paste to the cooked cluster beans. Season it with salt and bring it to a boil. Add more water depending on the desired thickness of the curry. It should be as thick as the dosa batter. Taste it and adjust the flavours according to your preference. Let it simmer for 5 minutes and turn off the heat.
For the tempering
Heat coconut oil and mustard seeds in a little pan. When the mustard starts to splutter, add the lightly crushed garlic cloves. Fry till the garlic turns golden and add the dry red chili. When the chili turns bring red, turn off the heat. Pour the tempering over the curry.
Serve with Rice
Notes:
Other vegetables which can be used instead of cluster beans are bitter gourd, pineapple, mango, cluster beans and hog plums. Balance the sweet and sour ingredients depending on the flavor of the vegetable used.
You can use both desiccated and frozen coconut instead of fresh coconut
I read that Menaskai usually tastes better the next day. So if you are serving it for dinner, try to cook it in the morning and let it sit the whole day. After boiling it a few times, it gets really thick like a chutney and the flavours get much stronger.
Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing this BM
vaishali sabnani says
The Udupi dish has mixed flavors which sound interesting , but i am not sure if all would like , even our family doesn't like pineapple in curries though I don't mind it once in a while.
Varadas Kitchen says
The balancing of the flavors sounds so similar to the Maharashtrian cuisine.
rajani says
Pineapple would give an interesting twist I guess. The preparation is kind of interesting.
Harini-Jaya R says
This sounds like something I would love to make.
Pavani N says
What an interesting sweet & sour curry that is. Looks yummy. Bookmarked to try.
Sapana Behl says
Lots of flavors are going in the curry.It sounds delicious.
Priya Suresh says
Can smell the flavor of this gorikai menaskai from here, fingerlicking goodness.
sneha datar says
Sounds very interesting!..easy to make.
Chef Mireille says
LOVE the masala in this curry - sounds so delicious
Sowmya :) says
Pretty dish and also lovely write-up about its history
Nisha Sundar says
This is one lovely dish Valli. This looks like our tamil kootu with slight variation in the ingredients... Bookmarked.
Vimala Lakshmi says
Its so delicious..........
NM says
Crazy....I just saw the same recipe, word to word, on this blog (http://www.lovefoodeat.com/gorikai-menaskai-cluster-beans-in-sesame-coconut-curry/). Wonder who's plagiarizing from whom.
Srivalli says
Hi since you seem to have all the time to check both the recipes, you should have taken time to read the my intro as well, where I have mentioned that I have used chinmayie's recipe. Thanks for stopping by.