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Maampoo Chammanthi and Kalanda Saadam

5 from 1 vote
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!
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Ingredients Method Notes

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

Method
 

Make the chammanthi
  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. Adjust salt, sourness, and sweetness as needed—and pound or pulse again to combine.
Temper the chammanthi (optional)
  1. 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.
  2. 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
  3. Once the mustard seeds pop, add the curry leaves; fry until crisp.
  4. Pour this quickly over the chammanthi and mix well.
Make and temper the rice
  1. 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).
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. Reduce to very low or switch off the flame at this point.
  5. Add salt.
  6. 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.
  7. Once all the rice and chammanthi are mixed in, adjust salt as needed.
  8. 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.