It is raining mangoes and jackfruits everywhere. If you are bored of eating it as fruits, then without hesitating turn it into a variety of lip smacking dishes that you cannot grow tired of.
Run into your grandma’s kitchen the variety of dishes that would welcome you there will be innumerable. Sweet, tangy, spicy you name it you have it. And the best part of the deal is that both can be used as a vegetable and a fruit.
Chakka varatti, the sweet jam made of ripe jackfruit jaggery and ghee, is the best way to preserve jackfruit and is an all time favourite with the young and the old alike. And is the most prepared dish during the jackfruit season.
It can be had alone or can be had with dosa, idli, bread. It can even be used as filling in kozhukatta, or ada and the like. Chakka varatti can also be used to make chakka varatti pradhaman.
Mangoes can also be preserved in the similar fashion by making it into jam or it can be made into squash a stored.
“These days varatti can be made not just out of jackfruits but out of mangoes as well,” says TV anchor Lakshmi Nair.
One would be amazed at the sheer varieties of products and food items that can be made out of these two.
“Ice creams are my favourite,” says Neha a BTech student in Bangalore. “Whenever I come home around this time apart from the home-made jackfruit and mango delicacies it is the special ice-creams that I long for. My mother makes it so well that you feel that you treated yourself with cups of fresh cool juicy mangoes and jackfruits,” she adds.
One of the most cherished and most sought after items out of grandma’s kitchen has always been the Pazhamanga curry or the ripe mango curry which is a simple preparation with ripe mangoes, curd, grated coconut, turmeric powder and the like.
“Jackfruit is one thing that be broken down in to so many things. Not just the fruit but it seeds are also equally good and tasty. One thing my family always craves for is ‘chakka vevichathau or mashed spicy form of jackfruit that can be had with fish chicken or meat. But over the years they have also come relish my mother’s special chakka kuru mezhukkuvatti, chakka kuru thoran and curry,” says Bhama a housewife.
Jackfruit can also be used to make kumbilappam, chakka ada, chakka puttu, chakka upperi and so on.
“Chakkakuru or jack fruit seeds can even be used in fish preparation, it can be used in beef ulathiyathu, or it can simply be cooked and had with chutney just like tapioca,” says Lakshmi Nair.
If fruits as such don’t attract your little imps then turn those ripe mangoes into something more attractive like a smoothie or a shake. “Even raw mango drinks made with raw mangoes, sugar roasted cumin powder, mint leaves, lemon, black pepper and the like are a hot favourite among customers during summers,” says Suresh who runs a juice shop.