Moringa Gravy(Maskasangi Ambat)

It has been a while since I posted something new here. A lot of things are going on and somehow the blogging took a back seat. But I do update my instagram page regularly(which is much easier and less time consuming!). So please do checkout my page. Link at the top. This moringa gravy or maskasangi ambat was on my list to post for a very long time.

Maskasangi or Moringa has become a huge health food fascination lately. But in our part of the world, it was/is always a hit. Everyone has a moringa/drumstick tree in their backyard. My parents have one tree in their garden too, but it never really yield anything. But our neighbors always shared their bounty with us. My parents reminded us to eat maskasangi – they reminded us it was full of iron. It was added to so many dishes like kolmbo, sukke, sagle and many more. The flowers were made into phodi. The leaves are used in many dishes too like this rotti.

This ambat is a very simple dish that aayi makes very regularly. It is spiced with just teppal(tirphal) and kokum. The main vegetable in this gravy shines through. You can also make this with cauliflower.

Ingredients:
10-12 drumstick pieces
1 cup fresh frozen coconut
4-5 red chillies (add more if you can handle spice)
5-6 teppal
3-4 kokum
Salt

Method:
Cook drumstick pieces in water and salt.
Grind coconut with red chillies to a very smooth paste.
Slightly crush teppal in water to extract the aroma. Add the water to the cooked drumstick, discard the teppal pieces.
Add the ground masala, kokum to drumsticks.
Cook till the gravy starts boiling.
Serve hot with rice.

Serves : 2-3
Preparation time : 20mins

Here is the video of the recipe