Kairi Bhat

Our mom has been making us a treat using left over rice in summers over the years. The treat is refreshing due to the tart and refreshing flavors of raw mango. the tempting of mustard seeds and curry leaves goes really well with mango and surprising the red chili powder instead of the green fresh chili works well too, not surprising as green mango’s love red chilli and salt.

As temperatures used to get hotter, it would signal the arrival of raw green mangoes in the markets in Pune. Mom would seek out what she called “khobri” Kairi (Raw mango). This is the kind she preferred as it was fleshy and with cleaner tart flavors. In recent years as mexican cuisine has found lot more popularity in the US, raw mango has started becoming easily available. Look for firm mangoes as soft ones will be ripened and sweeter. Even in peak winters, there is summer somewhere in the world and i have seen Australian mangoes arrive in markets, not quite local but if you need to try it, its a worthwhile raw mango for this recipe. Also note that the raw mango typically found in US is more yellow in color, which actually makes the dish look prettier, but it is indeed a tad sweeter in which case you need to add some acidity by adding some lime juice.

Raw Mango Rice

The recipe is quite simple. Mom used leftover rice. We love the recipe so much and we dont regularly cook rice, so sometimes we just cook some rice and cool it down. Remember if you do refrigerate rice, please heat it and cool it as there are risks of salmonella. Short grain rice of non sticky kind works the best. Then you just add the rice and peel and grate the mango, a coarse grater is better. To balance the tartness add some lime juice by tasting. The rice should in the end be balanced in flavors, not too tart but definitely you should be able to taste the refreshing acidity. Thus this dish works really great in the summer.