Black Eyes Peas curry with Yellow Chinese Cucumber Curry (Dhavve Adsaaney aani Magge Koddel)

Koddel is a konkani dish which is made of coconut, red chillies, tamarind paste cooked with vegetables, pulses and seasoned with garlic or mustard seeds. This is a ONE DISH type of food which serves as accompaniement as well as a side dish. The pulses and vegetables ooze out wonderful aroma.

I bought Yellow Chinese Cucumber from local India stores. This vegetable is cute, chubby and has beautiful yellow, green strips on them. Its difficult to judge a good cucumber from bad one except with the taste. Good ones do not taste sour and bad ones do.

There are some vegetables which I used to detest eating as a child. After having grown up, those same vegetables seem to be my favorites. Sounds kind of strange. Yellow Chinese Cucumber is one such vegetable also called as Magge in Konkani. It is also known as Dosakai in Kannada. I realised after cooking that the one I bought was little bitter. So called Mom and she said both the varieties would be found in a grocery. Some are bitter and some are good.

We make a Konkani based curry out of this vegetable called as Koddel. Koddel is a popular konkani dish based on coconut gravy and is seasoned with garlic and coconut oil. The whole kitche seems to waft with the redolent aroma of garlic once this dish is ready. Koddel and other varities of curries are categorized as Maasla Randayi. This originated from the word Maasolu which means gravy based on grated coconut and Bedgi chillies.

Mom had an interesting tale to tell me regarding Koddel. During olden days, when people did not have sufficient access to groceries they used to make Maasala randayi. Since everyone used to dwell in villages and during rainy season folks could not travel far to get vegetables from Saanta (konkani word for local vegetable market). Ladies in the house used to make ample use of lentils and legumes to make curries for lunches and dinners. Cucumbers used to grow in abundance in gardens and they used to add as a good supplement to curries which is also called as Bharshey (konkani word for accompaniement vegetable to be added in a curry).

Recipe Source: Mom
Serves: 4 individuals

Ingredients:
Black Eyed Peas - 1 C
Grated coconut - 1 c
Red Chillies - 4-6
Asafoetida - 1/10 t
Oil - for frying
Water - 8-10 C
Tamarind - 1" lump (optional)
Garlic flakes (crushed) - 6-8
Yellow Cucumber (chopped) - 1

Method:
Soak the peas overnight and boil in the pressure cooker next day. Transfer to a sauce pan alongwith sufficient water and set aside. Heat oil in a pan, and gently fry coconut alongwith red chillies. Allow to cool and gring this alongwith asafoetida and tamarind. Add this paste to the sauce pan of boiled peas. Add chopped cucumber alongwith the paste.

Bring to boil and give a garnish of crushed garlic sauted till charred in oil. Serve hot with rice.

Sending this entry to RCI: Mangalore and Udupi cuisines - July 2009. Good job Sia for hosting an event which enables us to showcase our regional cuisines.