Aamras

Every summer, we visit a small, family-run Gujarati restaurant in Dubai, to tuck into their weekend thali. The menu is the same every week - puris, undhiyo, chhole, potato curry, gujarati kadhi, dhoklas and aamras. While we don't care too much for most of the items in the thali, the undhiyo and aamras are outstanding. Everytime we scoop off a few spoons of aamras, the cup is promptly refilled. After downing atleast five cups of aamras, and the food, the staff will still insist on "some more aamras". Any refusal on our part, and the old cook appears at the table, lovingly serving the aamras himself and gently coaxing us into relenting - "the mango season is so short, have all you can now". Now we can't refuse, can we?

I tried making aamras at home without any extra flavouring and loved it. Then I saw a recipe which mentioned adding elaichi/cardamom to it and tried that. We hated it. Elaichi takes away the true mango flavour - it is a distraction in the the taste!! Going back to the original way, this is how I made it.

You'll need:

2 ripe mangoes - I used the Alphonso variety

a tbsp milk

a little water

sugar, if needed

Soak the mangoes in water for 2 hours - this takes the heat out of the mangoes. Then peel the mangoes and chop of the pulp. Reserve the seeds in the water - this is said to retain the flavour. Blend the pulp with milk till smooth. Check for sweetness and add sugar if needed. Add a little water (in which the seeds were retained) to make it a little thin and blend again. Serve chilled with puris or palak puris.

The original way of making aamras is by squishing the soaked mango with fingers and extracting the pulp. Blending it does not make a difference to the taste and is less time consuming.

Aamras goes to Arundhati at Escapades who is hosting WBB#22 - May Mango Madness.

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