Andhra style Dosa avakaya

The dosakaya or the cucumber is a small round shaped yellow vegetable with crisp crunchy skin and mild sweet-tarty taste and is used for prepare traditional andhra dishes like dosakaya pappu, dosakaya pachadi and dosa avakai.  The Dosa Avakaya is an old Andhra culinary tradition which is made in similar way like Avakai or the Mango pickle.

Any wedding in both telugu states of Andhra and Telengana will almost have the Dosa Avakai ( Dosavakaya) as one of the accomplishments.  The dosa avakai takes lesser time for preparation and less laborious compared to Mango pickle and the Dosa Avakaya can be consumed within 24 hours as compared to 6 or 7 days for Mango pickle.

Now let us see how to make Dosa Avakaya..

Ingredients required :

• 2 cups of dosakaya pieces
• 3 table spoons of coarse mustard seed powder
• 3 to 4 table spoons of red chilli powder
• 2 table spoon of salt
• 1/4 cup of sesame oil

Method of preparation of Dosa Avakaya :

Initial preparation :  First wash a medium sized dosakaya and dry it completely and see that it is not wet.  you can clean it with a dry cloth.  Now cut the cucumber into two halves and de-seed it and cut it into small pieces which should give about 2 cups of chopped pieces.     

Now the actual avakaya preparation...

Mix the chilli powder, mustard powder and salt.  Take a big vessel which is wide enough and add above spice mixture and the chopped dosakaya pieces.  Mix the pieces well with the spice mixture and add the oil slowly and combine with pieces till well coated.  The dosakaya pieces should be well coated and wet with the spice mixture and oil using 4 to 5 tbsp of oil.  Once the pieces are well coated and wet, you can check the taste of the raw dosavakaya pickle and add more salt if required.  If the salt is more, then add some more cucumber pieces to compensate the saltness.  Now you can put the cucumber pieces in a very clean and dry ceramic jar and cover it with a tight lid and keep in  a moisture free dark area in the kitchen.  On the next day you take a dry clean laddle and mix the pickle well.   

Now the Dosavakaya is ready to be consumed after 24 hours.  The spices and oil blended with the cucumbers will absorb the spice pungent flavors to form a thick paste like due to water content in the dosakaya mukkalu and the salt.

Serve this Dosavakaya pickle with steamed hot rice and ghee

If you want to know about more Indian recipes,  you can visit my other blog on Indian Recipes.