AVAKAYA - A TREDITIONAL ANDHRA MANGO PICKLE FROM ANDHRA PRADESH

Muddapappu,avakaya with hot steamed rice and ghee is the most wanted combination for Telugu people,OrPerugu annam (curd rice, cooked rice mixed with yogurt)with avakaya but most of the Telugu people likes with muddapapu(cooked and mashed pigeon peas with little salt)Avakayi, neyi(clarified butter/ghee) with steamed rice. From Ugadi (the telugu new year day) we start useing mangoes in our cooking that is the day we offer God the first crop of raw mangoes in Ugadi pachadi, After one month from Ugadi day the pickling mangoes will start coming in to the market. In this Hot summer season every Telugu household look forward for Avakaya making season. My mom will check for a good day and she first starts with making Mustard powder and fenugreek powder and then in the mid day after lunch She start mixing the pickle, by the time she finished mixing the pickle it will be evening 4o clock. Every year Amma makes this pickle for 3 households myself, my sister,my brother and for amma herself. I am so lucky that I got this treasure (avakaya pickle recipe) from my amma and to day here I am with the traditional Andhra pickle Avakaya.. And my choice is Hot rice with Muddapappu, Ghee and Avakaya yummmmmm heaven.. ok here I go with the recipe.........

INGREDIENTS:----
Mangoes -- 6 big (we use peddarasalu)
Salt -- 250 g or 2 1/4 cup with rice cooker cup
Turmeric --- 2 tab sp
Mustard power -- 250g or 2 1/4 cup (Dry 200 grams black mustard in hot sun for 2-3 hour or heat a deep frying pan and heat mustard till they hot when you touch with your hand, take care that mustard should not splutter when you fry them. Let them cool for some time and grind in to a fine powder. Grind mustard seeds very slowly giving gap in between every 2 sec. otherwise oil may come out from the mustard seeds )
Fenugreek powder- 2 tab sp
Fenugreek seeds --- 1 tab sp

Red chilli powder --300 g or 3 1/4 cups
Oil --- 1/2 kg ( good quality sesame oil)or idayam gingely oil.
Garlic - 100 grams(Garlic should be added on third day.

METHOD:-----
1. Clean mangoes with a lightly wet cloth and leave a side for dry .
2. Now cut the mangoes vertically in to half that the hard stone in the inside the mango is also cut in to two parts,discard the in side soft seed and their will be a thin layer stick to the hard part of the seed discard that layer also and clean the mango pieces with a dry cloth. Leave the hard shell of mango seed to the mango piece. that means each piece should contain the hard stone part so that the mango piece should not become soft after pickling for a year.

3. Now take half oil (I gave 1/2 kg oil in thair half means 1/4 kg oil) in to a big bowl or plate and add turmeric powder and fenugreek seeds to this oil mix well and add mango pieces to this oil and leave a side for 15 min. This will help to retain hard the mango piece in the pickle for long time.
4.Then add the mustard powder, fenugreek powder, salt and red chilli powder to the mango pieces and combine well with a ladle or with you r hand to combine the ingredients well and coat the mango pieces with the masala well.

5. place this mango pieces mixture in a jar or a glass bottle (don't use plastic jars or bottle) and pour the leftover 1/4 kg oil on top of the mango pieces and cover tightly and leave a side for 3 days.
6. On third day clean and peel the garlic cloves.
7. Now open the pickle jar and mix with a clean and dry ladle and check salt if required add some more salt and check once again, add garlic cloves and again mix well care fully again cover tightly and leave for 1 more day.
8. This will stay for 1 year.

NOTE:-- Choose the mangoes very carefully. Mangoes should be fully mature, raw, green and very sour in taste.
Especially for avakai choose the mangoes with high fiber, normally in Andhra pradesh we use peddarasalu or cheruku rasalu or any verity of rasalu mangoes if you don't find this verity then you can use any long verity which is fibrous, green and sour because when you pickling this fibrous mangoes the pickle will stand till the next season without going soft.
make sure that you don't touch water while making the pickle and clean each and every thing like mixing bowl ladle and mangoes with a dry cloth and dry them properly.
Don't compromise in ingredients like oil, salt and chilli powder these three ingredients are soul for this pickle (not only this every pickle). If you compromise in this three ingredients your pickle will spoil by the next day it self. So don't compromise with salt and oil measurements.
Can reduce the quantity of mustard powder in this case pickle (gravy) will become watery
first day what oil we pour in the pickle may not be visible but on the third day you can find the oil floating on top.