Mandas of Red Pumpkin is a traditional Indian recipe (from Mangalore) for a classic snack of a ground rice batter in coconut milk with pumpkin that's steamed in banana leaves. The full recipe is presented here and I hope you enjoy this classic Indian version of: Mandas of Red Pumpkin.
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Mandas is a traditional Mangalorean recipe for a rice cace that typically contains cucumber. This version, however, is made with red pumpkin instead.
Ingredients:
1kg boiled rice
1kg raw rice
750g jaggery (or palm sugar)
1/2 red pumpkin, flesh only
4 coconuts
175g ghee
pinch of grated nutmeg
1 tsp cardamom powder
salt to taste
a few plums and/or almonds (if available)
Method:
Extract 480ml of thick coconut juice, as follows: Grind the fresh coconut to a paste and when the paste is smooth add 300ml water and mix thoroughly. Squeeze as much coconut milk from the resulting mixture as possible. Then add a further 300ml water, mix and squeeze the coconut milk out again.
Wash and soak the boiled and raw rice for an hour and then grind along with jaggery (or palm sugar), red pumpkin, coconut juice and salt to obtain a thick batter. Add to this batter the blanched and cut plums and/or almonds (if available), cardamom powder and a little ghee and mix well.
Spread plantain (or banana, or dock) leaves at the middle, bottom, and sides of the steaming vessel (thondor). Apply ghee thinly over these leaves the pour in the thick batter and sprinkle a few drops of ghee on the top of the batter. Cover the top of the vessel with more leaves then replace the lid and steam it well placing the vessel in an oven with a tray of water underneath and cook for 30 minutes. Allow to cool, unpack and cut-up the resultant pudding and serve.
Traditionally this is served for breakfast, but it also makes a great sweet treat for Diwali.
