Mango Salsa

Mango Salsa is a Mexican dip recipe. It’s sweet, spicy and absolutely delicious. Serve this fresh and colourful mango salsa with nachos, chips, tacos or grilled chicken or any kind of grilled stuff. This is a salad itself.
This is also the best option to serve with various Indian veg and non-veg snack/kebab dishes.

Ingredients:  

• Mango, diced- 1 cup (from 1 big sized mango) 
• Onion, chopped- ½ cup
• Tomato, chopped- ¼ (remove the seeds and pulp)
• Jalapeno pepper, finely chopped- 1 tsp (I used pickled pepper.)
• Green chilli, finely chopped- 1 (optional)
• Fresh lemon juice- 1 tsp
• Fresh coriander leaves, finely chopped- 2 tbsp
• Olive oil- 1 tsp
• Salt and pepper- to taste

Method: 

• Combine all ingredients in a bowl and mix well. Let stand for 10-15 minutes.
• Toss very well just before serving.
• Serve this delicious mango salsa with tacos or grilled paneer, chicken or fish dishes.

Kolambiche Kalvan/Sar ~ Konkani Style Prawns Curry

We make prawns curry with two methods. The first method is by using dried and roasted coconut paste, we called it Kolambicha Rassa. And today I am showing the second method.
Here we are using fresh coconut. 

Ingredients:  

• Tiger prawns- 12 to 15 
• Turmeric powder- ½ tsp
• Hing- ¼ tsp
• Fresh coconut, scrapped- 1 cup
• Black peppercorns- 3 to 4 
• Fennel seeds- ½ tsp
• Coriander seeds- 1½ tsp
• Dry red chillies- 6 (I used Byadagi chillies, these are not hot.)
• Garlic-7 to 8
• Ginger- ½ inch (optional)
• Chilli powder- 1 tsp (optional: use if you like spicy)
• Kokum- 5 to 6
• Salt- to taste
• Coriander leaves, chopped- 2 tbsp
• Oil- 2 to 3 tbsp

Method:

• Remove shell, head and vain of prawns. You can also remove the tail. Wash the prawns. 
• Apply some salt and turmeric on them and keep aside.
• Soak red chillies, fennel seeds, coriander seeds black peppercorns for 15 minutes. 
• Transfer soaked chillies and other spices in a mixer jar. Add scraped coconut, garlic and ginger. Make a smooth and thick paste. 
• Heat oil in a deep pan. Add hing, chilli powder and saute while. You can add 2-3 curry leaves also. Personally, I don't like curry leaves in a fish curry.
• Add the ground paste and saute till the raw smell of the garlic is gone. It's take hardly 1 minute.
• Add a cup of water and bring to boil.
• Add the marinated prawns and kokum. Give a nice stir.
• Cook on low heat for 5 to 6 minutes. Keep stirring in between.
• Garnish with coriander leaves.
• Serve hot with bhakari or rice.

Crispy Bombil Fry ~ Bombay Duck Fish Fry

Bombil or Bombay duck fish founds only at the Konkan belt. Bombil has lots of water content if we squeeze out this water, bombil becomes crispy. I am giving a trick to make bombil more crispy and tasty. Yes! I use rava but this is not trick. This is a traditional trick used by everyone from our area of Konkan.

Ingredients:

• Bombay ducks or bombil- 8 to 10
• Turmeric powder- ½ tsp
• Asafetida (hing)- ¼ tsp
• Homemade masala or Malwani masala or Sunday masala or agari-koli masala- 3 to 4 tsp
• Garlic cloves- 8 to 10
• Kokam petals- 6
• Rice flour- 2 tsp
• Fine semolina/barik rava- approx ½ cup
• Salt to taste
• Oil for shallow fry- as required

Method:
Grind garlic and kokam together with minimum water into smooth paste. (options: plz read notes)
Cut the bombils as shown in pictures. 
Cut the head, tail and fins of both sides as well as stomach part.

Cut into two parts.

Slit and open the fish flat like a fillet.

Wash all pieces with water and apply some salt and turmeric powder on them. Put all cut pieces in a thin cotton or muslin cloth and make pouch/potali. Band it tightly.

Place the plate in slightly slant. I keep the one side of plate on the border plate of kitchen platform. You may use a plate. Keep board or another plate on it. Keep something heavy on it. Thus maximum water from bombil come out. My mom keep "Pata-varavanta/silbatta" on this potali.

After 20 to 30 minutes to drain almost water out. Marinate the fish pieces with masala, hing, kokum-garlic paste and some salt.

Combine rice flour and rava in a dish. Add little salt and masala in it and mix it.

Heat some oil in a tava.

Coat each piece of bombil in rava mixture and shallow fry till crisp.

Serve hot with bhakari or with fish curry and rice.

Tips:

• Do not use ginger for this style of fish-fry.
• I make usually garlic-kokum paste in a huge quantity and store in freezer. Because two reasons......first is, it is difficult to grind smooth paste in small quantity in the grinder. My mom uses "Pata-varavanta/silbatta" to make smooth paste. Second is, it saves time. (Grind together ½ cup garlic and ½ cup kokam with minimum water.) 2-3 tsp paste is required for med sized fish.rava or
• Malwani masala is easily available in the market. You can use also aagari-koli masala. All masalas from Konkan region are quite similar in taste. But store-bought masala can not give proper taste. 
• If you don't have enough time for all procedure, you could just use a paper towel to absorb all the moisture from the fish.