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Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Palakkai Koottu (Baby Jackfruit Curry)


Palakkai Koottu (Baby Jackfruit Curry)
This is a well known dish for the people hailing from Chettinad.Achi’s are very crazy of this veg and just because of that a small baby jackfruit will cost 30 or 35 Rs in that area. If anyone in chettinad manages to get one baby jack they will surely share half of it with their friends or close relatives since it is a rare find tasty veg. But I am lucky to have a jack fruit tree in my garden and I cook this often in season. This is a sure item to be cooked on pongal day and so however costly it is at that time, people will buy one and share atleat a small piece. During all functions the first item in the lunch menu list will be this curry if they could somehow manage to get this. I know all will be wondering what is special in this that the achis are so crazy about it.The answer you can get once you taste it and I am sure that all from chettinad would have for sure tasted the curry and will agree with me. Now a days with the pressure cooker, cooking the curry is also very easy. Only difficulty is the cutting part. Once you are experienced, it is a 10 minute job. Half baby jackfruit will be enough for this curry. In the next half we can make Pilakkai pirattal,another famous item made out of this veg

Ingredients
Baby jackfruit (half)-Skin removed and cut into small pieces
Big onion-1
Tomato-1
Sambar powder-2 teaspoons
Turmeric powder-1/2 teaspoon
Thoor Dhal-2 hand fulls
To season
Mustard seed-1 teaspoon
Cumin seed-1 teaspoon
Urudh Dhal-1 teaspoon
Curry leaf little
Corriander leaves to garnish
Procedure
Length wise cut the baby jack fruit into two halves. Soak a small tissue in oil and wipe of the milk coming out from the jack fruit. Peel off 1cm skin from the veg and cut into small pieces as shown in the picture. Chop the onions and tomatoes. Now in a pressure pan or small cooker put the cut jack fruit, onion and tomato pieces. Add the thoor dhal,sambar powder and turmeric powder also. Add water till the whole thing is just inside water. Add the salt needed also. Mix everything well and keep the cooker in the stove. Wait for the first whistle. After that reduce the flame and cook for just 5 minutes. After the pressure goes open the cooker. In a kadai in one table spoon of oil season the curry with the items given in ‘to season’ and pour the curry from the cooker into the kadai. Check for the exact taste and if anything is missing add that and bring the curry to a boil and switch off. Garnish with coriander leaves. The consistency is semi solid

4 comments:

Deepthi Shankar said...

that looks very nice ..

Cham said...

Oh Aunty I would love to glance ur garden :) This pallakai is cute never seen a baby one! I find the fruit here but very expensive... I never tasted this curry, but have seen in many (konkani) Blog pallakai curry..
The only thing i could do is just drooling!
BTW: Hope u re better now....

Raji said...

Hi aachi,

Iam a daily visitor to ur blog, looking daily for recipes, and all r ur fans. I am having palaakottai and undecided about what to do and here comes this kootu. Will surely try. Do pls post some palaakottai recipe. Thanks

Raji

anudivya said...

You have an amazing blog... all the authentic recipes are just amazing. We don't find them a lot these days, and I love Chettinaad cooking! I am gonna keep checking out your blog!