Here's a quick and simple, yet elegant twist to our humble jackfruit or kathal in hindi..
I call it 'besani kathal' meaning jackfruit coated with besan or gram
flour. It's a delicious traditional dish by which you can easily impress your
friends, because it looks complex while it doesn't take more than 15 mins to
prepare!
Ingredients
· 400 grams cut jackfruit (unripe)
· 100 - 200 grams of besan
(gram flour)
· 1/2 cup cooking oil
· Spices - turmeric powder, coriander
powder, garam masala red chilly powder and salt.
· Green coriander and lemon wedges for
garnishing
Steps
1. Pressure cook cut jackfruit pieces in
a cup of water and 1 tsp of salt, for about 5 mins. Jackfruit depending on how
hard or soft it is will take varying amount of time to get cooked.
2. Strain the cooked jackfruit pieces
and keep apart, while you prepare besan and the tempering.
3. Another parallel step that needs to
be done is roasting the gram flour on slow to medium heat till it
turrns golden brown and your kitchen is filled with the typical besani aroma!
Keep the roasted besan apart in a flat dish.
4. For tempering, heat the cooking oil
in a pan till smoking hot. Reduce the heat and add all the spices, followed by
the cooked jackfruit pieces.
5. Saute the jackfruit pieces well in
the spices for about 3-5 mins so as to get all the flavours inside..
6. Once you see oil leaving the
jackfruit pieces, you need to sprinkle the roasted besan all over the
sauteed jackfruit. Keep turning over the pieces, while you sprinkle the besan.
This will ensure nice and even coating of besan on all jackfruit pieces.
7. When you have finished sprinkling all
the besan, let your jackfruit roast for a couple of minutes and you are done!
8. Garnish with fresh green coriander
and lemon wedges and may be a green chilly..
Serve hot with tandoori roti, chappati, paratha or naan. Since this dish is little dry in texture, a bowl of chilled garlic or mint raita will be a nice accompaniment.
