Mirapakaya gojju/Green chilly sweet chutney

Chillies are spicy and gojjus are generally sweet and tangy.The blend of these flavors is the USP of this recipe. We use the long and big green chillies generally used to make mirchi bajjis, referred to as bajji mirapakaya in telugu for this recipe.

Preparation time: 20-30 mins

Serves: 2

Ingredients:

Long and Big green chillies (Bajji mirapakayalu) 1/4th kg
Onion 1
Jaggery (gud/bellam) 2tbsp
Tamarind 1blob
Refined cooking oil 1cup
Mustard seeds (aavalu) 1tsp
Cumin seeds ( jeera/jeelkarra) 1 tsp
Curry leaves 5
Coriander 2tsp
Black gram (urad dal/uddipappu) 1tsp
Red chilli powder 1tsp
Pinch of turmeric (Haldi/pasupu)
Pinch of Asafoetida (Hing/inguva)

Salt to taste

Method:

Soak 1 blob of tamarind in half a cup of water for around 10 mins. Extract the juice and set aside.

Cut the green chillies into thick circles or slit them vertically. Finely chop the onion and coriander.

Shallow fry the green chillies in pre- heated oil.

In a pan/kadai(bandli/mookudu), heat 4 tsp oil. Add mustard seeds and as they splutter add cumin seeds, black gram, curry leaves and finely chopped coriander. Add a pinch of asafoetida and a pinch of turmeric and sauté.

Add the chopped onions and stir till transparent. We don’t want them brown. Add the fried chillies and mix. (We could also add chillies without shallow frying and leave them to cook. In this case add a few more tsps of oil for the chillies to turn crisp.)

Add salt to taste, the tamarind juice or tamarind paste, jaggery and red chilli powder and mix well( if using tamarind paste, add half a cup of water). Leave to cook till the jaggery melts and the gojju thickens. This will take around 4-5 mins.

Garnish with coriander/ shredded coconut and serve. Mirapakaya gojju or green chilli sweet chutney is a rice supplement and does supplement any of the Indian bread too. Best way is to have it with ghee smeared parathas.