Its been a while I last had ordered Pothichoru thru PinStove (review posted back then) and yesterday my craving for it reached the peak and so opened up PinStove… Last time I had got the vegetarian Pothichoru from the PinChef Athira J and this time I saw that she has a non-veg option as well… So, went for it along with two other items that peaked mine and my mom’s interest namely the Masala Egg Burji and what they call Thenga Sharkara Ada…
So, this time the Pothichoru came with a portion of Rice, Beans thoran, Vazhakkoombu (banana-blossom) thoran, Kovakka (Ivy Gourd) thoran, Kappa (Cassava), a couple of Fried Fish (Sardines), along with some Chammanthi (Coconut based) and mango pickle in the banana leaf package. Along with it came a portion of Fish Curry and Dal (Parippu Curry) as shown in the pics below…
It was a welcoming sight to have sardines again since its been a very long time since I have had them last; so long that I almost forgot how they taste like… The rice was indeed cooked perfectly… The chammanthy was same as last time… However, as I requested when placing the order, the level of spiciness has definitely come down compared to the veg pothichoru I had last time… The rest of the side dishes in the package were all well and good with the medium level spiciness… However, I do have one suggestion though, which I also mentioned as feedback in PinStove… I felt like the quantity of rice given is too much for the amount of curry given… I mean it could be simply true in the perspective of a northerner like me, but I really wish there was more of that chammanthi and the mango pickle in there… Also, another suggestion is to make sure the selection of side dishes be a bit more carefully chosen so that the combination works well… Here I felt that the combination of Vazhakoombu with Beans didn’t quite work for me… Probably would be better if instead of having two thorans, if one was replaced by something else like Inji curry for example… However, individually if I eat them with the rice, they are really good… The problem is when mixing like I do 🙂
The fish curry was simply awesome… Simple recipe but packaged with flavours as in an incredible flavour of the drumstick (Muringa/Moringa) along with the spices and of-course the fish… This recipe is very popular and is the perfect accompaniment to boiled chemba rice any time… Then of-course there was the dal which kind of mellowed out the spiciness that existed, which along with the fish curry sort of bound everything together in my plate… 🙂
Safe to say that it was an incredible meal to have for lunch… Now one thing missing when compared to other pothichoru options in Trivandrum is the omelette thats kept in the package… So, the decision to try their Masala Egg Burji turned out to be a blessing 🙂
The egg burji turned out to be on the spicy side with the heat from green chillies, crushed black pepper and it had a good flavour of garam masala, curry leaves and shallots…
Finally the last item that we got was whats called Thenga Sharkara Ada… We are familiar with what we call ela-ada and there is a variant of that made with a filling having sharkara (jaggery) instead of sugar… So, we were actually expecting that…
As can be clearly seen from the pics above, it turned out to be something different… What we got turned out to be a thick wheat based dosa/pancake stuffed with coconut, nuts(cashews) and jaggery mixed together with cardomom pods and I think I could detect the fragrance of a bit of ghee as well… My mom was really surprised, because although wheat dosas have been her weakness for decades, she never once thought of adding the ela-ada stuffing into it… We all loved the ada and it turned out to be an excellent dessert for the meal… 🙂
So, altogether, although there were some pitfalls, it was a great meal thanks to PinChef Athira J and I hope to explore the rest of her menu soon…