Mango Pappu (Mahanandi)

Ingredients:

1 green mango
1 medium sized red onion - sliced into big chunks
4 fistfuls of toor dal (¾ cup)
1 teaspoon of chilli powder
¼ teaspoon of turmeric
½ teaspoon of salt or to taste

Popu/Tadka

1 tsp of peanut oil or ghee
1 tsp of each - mustard seeds, cumin, urad dal, chana dal
4 to 6 dried red chilli pieces and curry leaves
2 garlic cloves - finely chopped

Method

1.Wash green mango thoroughly to remove any pesticide sprayings. Dry it with a towel then cut it into small cubes. I don’t like to peel the mango for this recipe. The tough outer skin of mango, imparts kind of tarty flavor to the dal, so following the tradition, I also keep the skin. Scrape any white flesh attached to the seed with a peeler and then only discard the seed. (see this photo for the stripped seed.)

2. Take toordal, mango, onion, chilli powder and turmeric in a pressure cooker. Add one and half cups of water. Close the lid and pressure cook until 3 whistles or until you are sure the dal is soft and crumbly. Turn off the heat and wait for the pressure to go off.

3. After all the valve pressure is released, remove the lid. The contents usually are cooked soft by now, add salt and with a wood masher, mash the dal, until all the toordal turns into fine mush.

4. In a vessel, heat peanut oil or ghee, Toast the popu ingredients in this order. First add dried red chilli pieces, garlic and chana dal. Then urad dal and curry leaves, finally add and toast cumin and mustard seeds.

5. Remove the mashed mango dal from pressure cooker and add it to the popu in the vessel. Stir to mix and cover the vessel with a lid so that the dal could absorb the flavors of popu

Serve with rice and ghee, a dry sauté curry by the side and some papads for a memorable meal.

My preference: Mix mango dal with rice and ghee thoroughly. Shape the mixture into small rounds and have them with papads preferably sago (sabudana papad).