Arachu Kalaki is a typical Palakkad dish. It requires minimal use of the stove. An ‘almost’ raw dish, it tastes fabulous! I can eat a whole meal of just arachu kalaki and brown rice. When my avidly non-vegetarian German friend, Robert Fuchs, came home for dinner a few years ago, I’d planned this dish. He not only loved it, but packed all the leftovers to carry back. And wrote down the recipe to boot!
You can use any one of three ingredients in this recipe – raw gooseberry (amla, nellikai), raw elephant yam (suran, jimikhand, chenai) or raw baby mangoes (vadu mangai). The only variation is that you need to add a little tamarind when using yam during the grinding process, since yam is not sour. Otherwise, the method is the same. I will demonstrate the dish using raw mangoes.

Ingredients
1 medium sized raw mango
2 tbsp grated coconut
2-3 tbsp sour vegan curd (vegan curd can be made sour by placing it in the sun)
3-4 dried red chillies
1/4 tsp fenugreek seeds (methi dhana, venthiyam)
1/2 tsp mustard seeds (sarson, kadugu)
1 sprig curry leaves
Salt to taste
Method
Heat a wok and roast fenugreek seeds and red chillies
De-seed the raw mango and cut into coarse pieces
Grind together grated coconut, roasted fenugreek seeds + roasted red chillies, mango pieces into a fine paste
Add sour vegan curd while grinding
Transfer to a serving bowl
Adjust consistency by adding more vegan curd
Add salt
Mix well
You should get the consistency of a thick raita
Heat a wok and add mustard seeds
When they begin to splutter, add to arachu kalaki
Garnish with curry leaves
Serve at room temperature with idli, dosa, red or brown rice…
Enjoy!