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Maampoo Chammanthi and Kalanda Saadam

A crumbly mango blossom “chutney” for lack of a better translation of “chammanthi,” which gets used to make a mango blossom mixed rice or variety rice. Vegan, easy, quick, seasonal, local, lovely!
5 from 1 vote
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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.