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Cucumber Mandas - Thoushyaso Mandas

Steamed cucumber cake or mandas as its called is a very popular dish in the Mangalorean region. its eaten as a breakfast or even as a tea time snack. Its a very simple and a healthy snack and extremely filling. I usually make this for breakfast especially steam this on a Friday night so that we wake to a lazy weekend morning to a amazing breakfast dish.

Normally mandas is made 2 ways, either steamed like the one I am about to show you or a baked version which is good as well. Apart from these 2 methods there is one more amazing way to make it, is to cook it on wood fire with fire on top and bottom. Its called Voir Ponda Uzo Galn Mandas, unfortunately I wont be able to share with you that now as it requires lot of patience and equipment and a wood fire furnace, hopefully when I visit my house in the village I would get an opportunity to share it.

Ingredients 

1. Cucumber - 1 big or 2 small sized ( always opt for local cucumbers, not the small green salad variety)
2. Idli Rice (Mutambo tandu) - 1 cup ( washed and soaked for 6 to 8 hrs)
3. Coconut - 1 cup grated
4. Jaggery - 1/2 cup grated
5. Ghee - 2 tbsp
6. Cardamoms - 12 to 15 shelled
7. Salt to taste
Dry fruits like raisins ( optional)

Method

Peel the cucumber and grate it.

Grind all the ingredients including ghee into a very smooth paste with very little or no water (cucumber releases enough water to aid grinding).

Grease a steaming pan with ghee and pour in the batter into the pan and mix in the dry fruits.

Heat up a steaming pot ( sondor ) and place the pan with batter into the sondor and cook for 20 to 30 mins.

To check if its done, insert a knife in the center of the mandas after 20 mins, if it come out clean switch off the flame or else continue to cook.

Once cooled, cut and serve.

For the baked version - Put the batter into a greased cake tin, preheat the oven for 10 mins at 220 degrees, place into the oven and continue cooking at 180 degrees for an hour and check at 45 mins either with a knife or a skewer.

Note - You can increase the amount of jaggery depending on your sweet preference and also increase the amount of coconut, the more the coconut the softer it turns out to be.








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