Hooked On Sour Mango – A Delicious Mango Daal Recipe

While the onset of winter brings a completely new cuisine, which includes a lot of spicy and fatty dishes, it all gets replaced in summer by a few things. High temperatures and the first hot, dry winds have already hit Karachi, which brings different meanings for the people in Karachi: lawn fever, MANGOES, beaches, and monsoon.

I could have posted a 1000 word post or perhaps more on lawn fever alone. But I can’t: I AM NOT INTERESTED IN WHATEVER I WEAR whether its Asim Jofa or Peri-peri. It won’t be surprising for me if the next brand I get to know of is called Peri-peri. :P Imagine, Peri-peri lawn :D

Anyway, my topic is sour mango. Because it is cheap and I can easily get it from the vegetable vendor who sets up his stall right outside our gate. I can even send my Masi to get sour mangoes for me for a mere 10 rupees. So, its a lot easy you see to get sour mangoes than any 3 piece lawn suit. I know that’s a faulty comparison but hope you get the point. No? Never mind.

So, the point is I am hooked onto sour mangoes. And this is the first summer in my entire lifetime that I have truly found this natural fruit totally relishing and delicious. Ripe and sweet mangoes are still a NO-NO for me because of all the carbs they have. Even sour mangoes have a good share of carbs, which might explain why I am growing so much these days. But still, they are worth it.

I can never eat sour mangoes as they are. I remember my sister plucking them from trees and eating them right away. But I don’t have enough guts to do that. So, I have been searching for good sour mango recipes on the internet. And I found a truly amazing recipe of Mango daal on a blog. I tried it that night only and it tastes just amazing.

You can find the original recipe of mango daal here. But here is my own Pakistani version:

I couldn't take my own picture. My camera is not working. so here is the credit for this picture:
www.saffrontrail.blogspot.com

Ingredients:

½ cup Mung ki daal

½ cup Masoor ki daal

Few Curry leaves

½ teaspoon Cumin seeds

4 sour mangoes, small ones

Salt to taste

Turmeric ¼ teaspoon

2 – 3 Green chillies

1 teaspoon Garlic ginger paste

Coriander leaves for garnish

Method:

Cook mung daal and masoor daal together in enough water with salt and turmeric for about an hour until both daals form a paste. You may use a blender here or just use your spoon to mix it well. I prefer using the spoon since I like a thick consistency.

Chop sour mangoes and green chillies. Heat oil in a pan and put in curry leaves and cumin seeds until the seeds turn brown. Then add garlic ginger paste, sour mango and green chilli paste and cook the masala for a few minutes. Then add this masala in the cooked daal and mix it well. Add coriander leaves and serve hot with roti or steamed rice.

Mango daal with mango pickle makes an excellent combination. My mom sent a generous amount of mango pickle for me. I’ll post the recipe soon. In the meanwhile, I am enjoying the mango pickle three times a day, every day of the week. <3 It’s finger-licking good!

Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi – Makes Sense Now!

For the first time since its release, this movie made any sense to me. In fact, I found it really heart-warming. I don’t know why I found it nonsense when it was first released. The message portrayed escaped all logics at the time. But when I watched the movie yesterday, it made all the sense in the world to me.

The gist of the movie: Shahrukh Khan changes himself for his wife to please her and he was hoping to make her fall in love with him. It doesn’t take him a lot of time to be successful. But then it suddenly occurs to him that his wife should love him the way he is; she should appreciate and value his love for her and there should be no need for him to change.

This point escaped me several years back but now it makes sense. This is what true love means. A person doesn’t have to change his entire personality to make someone fall in love. A person can’t even do that. Changing your physical appearance and your entire personality can be a temporary thing but not permanent. Losing your own-self to make someone fall in love doesn’t make sense.

While in a relationship, there should be enough flexibility in each person to change himself to make a relationship work, it doesn’t mean the person has to change ENTIRELY and lose himself in the process.

I don’t believe in “made-for-each-other” couples. Everything requires effort and so, does a relationship. If you have problems in your relationship, it doesn’t mean what people say “it wasn’t meant to be”. It just means you need to put in more effort to make it work. And effort requires changes. You need to change the way you communicate with each other, express your feelings and perhaps work out some tactics to make it work between you two. Effort requires working out strategies that will help you to ignore the indifferences between you two.

However, these changes do not mean you should change yourself from head to toe. Every person has his own unique personality and you can never change his personality not even expect such a thing. Neither can you change nor your partner. So, you both have to accept and love each other the way you are.

So, Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi is indeed a heart touching movie. And now, I can understand why Shahrukh Khan reverted back to his original personality and original appearance.

<3 <3