For the mighty fruit that will eventually emerge from panicles such as these—such diminutive little mango blossoms.
The sight of the trees covered in pyramidal, frond-like inflorescences we know and love for their lightly astringent-sweet fragrance, their red-green tinges, and the way they catch the yellow light of a summer slowly setting in.
But how much really do we know about the thousands of little blooms on the mango tree in full and profuse bloom like so many dots on a pointillist’s brush? Those pretty, curled petals with red-golden throats are often male flowers, there just to provide pollen to ants, bees, wasps, and other comparably small pollinators. Those that will eventually bear fruit are in fact hermaphrodites, with only a single fertile stamen of five. Think of it that way and it’s such a miracle that we have mangoes at all, and no wonder that eventually that abundance of panicles drops with the weight of a far smaller number of drupes when it comes to it. But none of that has happened yet; it’s still too early for even the tiniest of fruits.
I’ve long been barred from picking blossoms (or even grumbling about the mango trees’ rather wide growing habits, which of course shade my kitchen garden unforgivably). This year, just as I was eyeing the flowers and considering pinching off some low ones, I found my sister-in-law rather high up in her mango canopies: her trees are in first bloom, and to keep them strong for subsequent years (we’ve been told) it’s good to pick off blossoms. She was doing this dutifully and I was therefore the lucky beneficiary of a large handful of tender panicles which became a chammanthi which became the kalanda-saadam or mixed rice or “variety rice” that is the ultimate climax of this story.
The “chammanthi” is a style of chutney more from the Kerala side of things than the Tamil; it can ask for additions like shallots or sambar onions and coconut bits, though whatever is added is pounded or ground together into a crumbly-moist mixture that holds together as a ball but does not pour like other chutneys. Needless to say, no water is used in making chammanthis, but a tempering is poured over top. The whole thing makes better sense if you know also that “chammanthi” derives from the Sanskrit “sambandhi,” which means marriage. And, as with any marriage, there’s a coming together, a unifying, and a melding–but not so much that individuals are indistinguishable. So in the chammanthi you can still taste that bite of onion or chilli or feel the coconut to be that distinct texture; ingredients retain something of their individualism, whereas in the chutney they simply cannot.
The maampoo chammanthi uses a handful of cleaned, tender flowers and buds, a little coconut, a little more tamarind and a few more dry red chillies than a chutney might need. Salt, to taste. Jaggery for those (like me) who cannot do without. Nothing to it really. Everything to it in the sensory capture of that subtle first flush of summer, that maa malar vaasanai [mango flower scent] and astringence [thuvarppu].
This chammanthi can be consumed on its own–sprinkled over eggs or appams for example–or it can be added to cooked rice, which then gets tempered and crunchy peanuts added to make it what Tamilians will call “variety” rices: others popular ones are lemon rice, tamarind rice, tomato rice, coconut rice, mustard rice [kadugu saadam], urad rice [ulundhu saadam], even curd rice [thair sadam]. Get it? Varieties and varieties of rice, also called “mixed” rices because some chammanthi-like or thokku-like or gojju-like preparation is what is being mixed with plain cooked rice.
So now in mango flowering season, add to that list the maampoo kalanda sadam: mango blossom mixed rice. Add a boiled egg or some chips and it’s the easiest and perhaps most interesting office lunch you might have to show off at those company lunch tables.
Maampoo Chammanthi and Kalanda Saadam
Ingredients
For the Chammanthi
- 1 cup mango buds and tender blossoms, stalks removed and cleaned
- 2-3 dry red chillies, plus a drop of oil to fry
- ¼ cup freshly grated coconut
- A small quantity of dry tamarind, to taste
- 1 teaspoon jaggery
- Salt, to taste
To temper the chammanthi (optional)
- 1 teaspoon neutral flavored oil
- ½ teaspoon urad dal
- 1 broken dry red chilli
- ½ teaspoon mustard seeds
- A pinch of asafoetida or hing
- 1-2 sprigs curry leaves
For the Kalanda sadam or mixed rice
- 2 cups aromatic short grain rice. Ambe mohar is ideal! Jeeraga samba, Gobindo bhog also work
- Salt, to taste
To temper the rice
- 2 tablespoons oil
- 1 teaspoon Bengal gram dal
- 1 teaspoon urad dal
- 2 broken red chillies
- ½ teaspoon mustard seeds
- Pinch of hing
- 2-3 sprigs of curry leaves
- ½ cup roasted peanuts
Instructions
Make the chammanthi
- In a small tempering pan, heat a scant drop of oil and toast the red chillies in it. Once they're fragrant, remove from the heat.
- Assemble all ingredients for the chammanthi (including the toasted red chillies) in a molcajete if you have one (in a mixer jar if you don’t) and pound well (or pulse a few times) to combine.
- Adjust salt, sourness, and sweetness as needed—and pound or pulse again to combine.
Temper the chammanthi (optional)
- Temper the chammanthi only if you’ll be using it as such and not making the mixed rice. If you are making the rice, skip this step.
- Heat the oil in a small tempering pan and once it’s near-smoking, add all the tempering ingredients (save the curry leaves) in one go
- Once the mustard seeds pop, add the curry leaves; fry until crisp.
- Pour this quickly over the chammanthi and mix well.
Make and temper the rice
- Cook the rice (a 1:2 water-to-rice ratio is usually good) and spread on a wide plate to allow to cool and for the grains to firm up slightly. (Drizzle a little oil if they are too wet/sticky).
- In a large skillet or kadhai, heat the oil until near-smoking. Quickly drop in all the tempering ingredients save the curry leaves and peanuts, and wait until the mustard seeds splutter.
- Now follow with the curry leaves and when they’re crisping, add the peanuts. Roast these well for a minute or two, until they’re browning slightly.
- Reduce to very low or switch off the flame at this point.
- Add salt.
- Start adding large spoonfuls of the rice and smaller spoonfuls of the chammanthi alternatingly, mixing well with each other and the tempering as you go.
- Once all the rice and chammanthi are mixed in, adjust salt as needed.
- Serve at room temperature with a nice big handful of salted potato crisps or applams (papad).
Notes
- Careful working with mango blossoms if you have allergies to the stem sap and its volatiles, for those are what make this mixed rice so distinctively delicious.
- The best rice to use for this rice preparation is the Maharashtrian heritage variety, ambe mohar: a rice with the scent of mango blossoms. In the absence of ambe mohar, use jeeraga samba, gobindo bhog, or some other Dehraduni short-grained basmati.
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