Chako (Raw Jackfruit Bhaji)

Directions

• Prepping the raw jackfruit:
• Spread out 3 layers of newspapers on the floor or on your table. It’s a pain to later clean jackfruit sap sticking to the floor/table.
• Apply generous amounts of oil onto your knife/sickle blade and onto your hands to prevent jackfruit gum from sticking to your knife, fingers and hands.
• Chop raw jackfruit in the middle into 2 halves, wipe clean the white sap that drips off using a tissue paper.
• Chop it further into halves. Chop each piece further into halves depending on their size. Clean off the sticky sap using tissue papers. If there’s excess gum oozing out of the jack fruit, clean it using a paper towel. Or it’ll make your chopping board messy and sticky.
• Chop off the inner, center, ridge portion, but keep a thin layer so that the inner compartments of jackfruit are held together firmly and they don’t disintegrate all together.
• The inner jackfruit core is the hard, white portion at the top of each piece.
• Then chop raw jackfruit into cubes and add them into a vessel containing water.
• Pressure cook them with salt and 1 cup of water for 1 whistle. Do not overcook raw jackfruit. We want soft, well-cooked jackfruit.
• Add 2 tablespoons of oil while cooking raw jackfruit to help you clean your pressure cooker easily later on. Oil prevents any gum from sticking to your cooker.
• Once cooked, drain all the water and transfer cooked raw jackfruit into a bowl.
• Smash them a little with your hand to get thin pieces. You can even cut them into thin pieces using a knife.
• Preparing the masala:
• Fry urad dal, coriander seeds, red chilies using few drops of oil in a tempering pan, until the urad dal starts to brown. By then you get aroma of fried coriander seeds and red chilies. Remove off heat and let them cool down completely.
• Once they cool, grind them along with grated coconut, tamarind, jaggery and little salt(remember you have already added salt to jackfruit while cooking it) into a coarse, very, very, dry masala using as little water as possible.
• Preparing chako:
• Heat oil in a deep bottomed pan, add in mustard seeds, once they start popping, add in curry leaves, add in dried red chilli cut into small pieces and let them sizzle for few seconds.
• Then add in ground coarse dry masala, 2 tablespoons of water and mix well. Simmer and cook the masala until it gets very dry.
• Then add in pieces of cooked raw jackfruit and mix well.
• Simmer and cook closed until they combine well and the dish (chako) gets very, very dry.
• Add in more salt and jaggery if required.
• Saute once in a while to prevent it from sticking to the bottom of the pan.
• Remove off heat and serve hot with vegetable rice plate.