Mango Chutney

The king of fruits, Mango is a welcome guest in our house be it green or yellow. I buy the green variety with the intention of making this chutney and always end up chopping them and eating them with salt and chilli powder. I braved the strong desire to eat it that way and made the chutney which can be eaten as is.

It is a great accompaniment to dosas,idli, rotis and bread.

This recipe again is from the cookbook by Shehzad Husain & Raft Fernandez

Unripe mango peeled and cubed - 4 cups

Vinegar - 4 tbsp

Chilli Flakes - 1/2 tsp ( I used a little more and the variety we use to top on pizzas)

Cloves - 6

Whole Black pepper - 6

Roasted Cumin seeds - 1 tsp

Sugar - 3/4 cup

Ginger - Finely sliced 2 inch long

Garlic- 2 cloves crushed

Salt to taste

• Heat the vinegar and sugar in a saucepan along with all ingredients except mango,ginger and garlic.
• Simmer on very low heat for about 7 minutes.
• Add the mango,ginger and garlic and simmer until the mango is mushy and vinegar has evaporated.
• Cool and store in a air tight container.

The recipe says leave it for a few days before serving. But I did not have the patience and started having it on the pretext of tasting it.

Potatoes on fire or is it your tongue :)

Warning: This is not a dish for someone who like their food bland. Roll up your sleeves and try this fiery potatoes. It is a wonderful accompaniment to rotis.
I followed the recipe to the T from a cookbook by Shhzad husain and Rafi Fernandez.


Ingredients

Small New potatoes - 1 lb
Dried red chilly - 1 oz
Cumin Seeds - 1.5 tsp
Garlic - 4 cloves
Oil - 6 tbsp
Tomato Paste - 2 tbsp
Tamarind paste - 1 tsp
Curry leaves - 5 to 6
Sugar -1 tsp
Hing - a pinch
Salt to taste
Cilantro for garnish

• Boil potatoes until tender and drain.


• Soak the chillies in water for 5 minutes. Drain and grind with cumin and garlic to a coarse paste.


• Heat the oil in a pan. Fry all ingredients, except the potatoes until the oil seperates.


• Add potatoes and cook for another 7- 10 minutes in reduced heat and covered.
  Garnish with cilantro.

On another note, Rajesh has been posting a lot of pictures on my blog and have been asking him to seperate it, so here is his blog and his passion
http://paithyakara.blogspot.com/

Thanks Manisha for the wonderful award. I am a little under the weather and today R coaxed me to post this recipe so I forget my ailments and start typing furiously:)

Luscious

Luscious

Astrophotography

My first attempt at astrophotography, using a Celestron telescope and my trusty ole PenTaX optio 450

Update: 8/29/07
For those of you who wanted to know how I did this, and want to try it out on the nearly full moon now.

Setup : Very very simple. Optically coupled the eyepiece of the telescope and my pentax optio 450 with scotch tape. Set the camera to manual focus and reduced the exposure compensation.

Enjoy.