I was actually planning to make plantain pickle or Aratikaya ava.
In Andhra Aratikaya Ava pettina Kura is very popular. Just boil them plantains, mash them and make them into a curry just as mashed potato curry with onions and stuff, and finally add a little bit of mustard seed paste and call it a day!
Aratikaya ava is different. It is not a curry.
Memories with this pickled plantain are so many, as kids as soon as Mom used to prepare them, we would be waiting with great appetite, to eat it with fresh, hot cooked rice, and add warm melted ghee to fight the chilly, and hot pepper spicy food.
So how would I prepare this gentle and hot spicy green banana pickle.. Traditionally, bananas are peeled and made into 2*1 inch pieces, like you cut them bananas to two inches pieces and cube them into four. Boil these guys with a little bit of turmeric and salt just for a short while, dry them off. Add them to the pickle or achar masala.
Now the big question is, do you like to make masala the way mom made it, or differently?
I would advise you, just follow the mom’s way. However, would you? I have a blended method to prepare pickle, and so far it worked fine.
During Summer, Atthayya garu would prepare mango pickle by adding all spices to freshly extracted sesame oil. She would then add the prepared mango pieces, to this mixture and add some more sesame oil and then some. Three mangoes chilly powder would be a best substitute, if freshly grounded dry chillies from Guntur were not available. The concept is to mix spices with oil, to preserve the mangos. How one does, depends on their traditional way of making a pickle.
Amma would add only warmed, or heated and cooled oil with the spices and other ingredients, where as no heating was required for what they prepared at in laws’. Both tasted excellent and lasted year long. I get the best of both worlds, and so do my doctors, because the more salt goes into my system, the more doctors will get business to heal us!
Oh nevermind about that, in this brand new season, what is living a life for if you cannot enjoy some hot rice with freshly made avakaya! Try out all recipes, they are all awesome!
Oh by the way, the plantain pieces have to be fried well in oil, and placed on a paper towel to eliminate excessive oil.. I get it, even though you add more oil to the pickle, the fried pieces do need less oil! May be that makes sense, I am not sure! How about if you air fry them plantain pieces to be peppered and pickled, does that help? Only one way to find out!
