Pineapple, Mango In A Spicy, Sweet Coconut Gravy (Avnas Ambe Sasam)

Konkani cuisine's summer favourite is avnas ambe sasam. With every bite of this delicious dish its a myriad of flavours in your mouth. There's sweetness from mangoes and jaggery, sourness from pineapple, grapes and tamarind, spiciness from the dried red chillies used.

Here's the recipe for you to make this delicious, easy, quick Konkani style summer salad (sasave in Kanada). Avnas in Konkani means pineapple, ambo in Konkani refers to mango, sasam in Konkani is a dish made using ground coconut chutney as the base, chutney ground using with few mustard seeds.

Avnas ambe sasam is a part of the menu of most functions, celebrations in summer as this spicy, sweet, tangy, coconut side dish is all things summer & delicious. Usually, ripe mangoes and pineapple are used to make this side dish. Black or green grapes are also added to it for that sweet, tang hit with every bite. And there’s no cooking involved.

Here’s the recipe for you.

Ingredients:

2-3 slices of pineapple or 3/4 cup of cubed pineapple
1 medium sized ripe mango
7-8 grapes - white or black ones (optional)
3/4 cup grated coconut
1/4 lemon sized tamarind
3-4 dried red chillies
1/4 teaspoon of mustard seeds
2 tablespoons of jaggery
1 teaspoon of oil
Salt to taste

For tempering:

1 tablespoon of oil
1 leaflet of curry leaves
1/4 teaspoon of mustard seeds

Serves: 2-3

Preparation Time: 20-25 minutes

Preparation Method:

Peel and slice the pineapple. Cube 2-3 slices of pineapple and keep it aside. Chop them into bite sized pieces. Not too small cubes, slightly bigger cubes are a pleasure to eat.
Peel and cube the mango. Chop them into bite sized pieces and keep it aside. Not too small cubes, slightly bigger cubes are a pleasure to eat.
If you'e using grapes, then wash them well. Black & green grapes with seeds are added whole, green & black seedless grapes are halved or added whole to this dish depending on their size.
Heat a tempering pan. Roughly break dried red chillies into pieces. Fry them for a minute using few drops of oil. Remove it off heat and let it cool down. This step helps them get crispy to be powdered while grinding.
Grind grated coconut, tamarind, salt, jaggery, mustard seeds and dried red chillies into a coarse paste using just as much water as you need. If the mango, pineapple, grapes you are using are sour you can choose to skip or reduce quantity of tamarind you are using.
Transfer this ground masala into a mixing bowl.
Add in about 1/4 cup of water if the masala is too thick. Consistency of this dish - sasam is in between semi-thick to thick.
Check and adjust salt, jaggery. Add jaggery according to your palate. Depending on how sweet you would like your sasam to be.
Then add in cubed pineapple, mango, grapes to the gravy and mix well.
Tempering: Heat oil in a tempering pan, add in mustard seeds. When they start popping, add in curry leaves and let them sizzle for few seconds. Remove off heat and add the tempering to the gravy in the bowl and mix well.
Serve it as a side dish for lunch, dinner.

Serving suggestion:

Serve with rice as a side dish for lunch, dinner.

Side Note: As the coconut gravy of this dish isn’t cooked, finish it off within 4-6 hours of preparation. Otherwise they tend to get spoilt as there's no cooking involved. You can choose to refrigerate any leftovers. This dish taste best while it's freshly made or is just chilled, doesn't taste too good on thawing.

Use any type of mango, pulpy mangoes that are sweet, sour, sweet-sour, not-so-sweet, any type tastes great in the spicy-sweet masala.

Even pineapples that are sweet, sour, sweet-sour, not-so-sweet, any type tastes great in the spicy-sweet masala.

If you have not so good tasting mangoes or pineapples you can make this dish to empty them. ;-)

Liked this mango dish? Then you'll definitely like these 2 Konkani cuisine favourites:

Sweet, Sour, Spicy Mango Curry (Ambe Upakari)

Ripe mangoes in a sweet, spicy side dish (Ambe Gojju)

Ripe Mango Side Dish (Ambe Sukke)

Find more Konkani cuisine side dishes here.

Tags: Pineapple, mango, sasam, Konkani cuisine, Konkani dish, Udupi cuisine, Mangalore food, ugadi