These leaves hold a special place in the Andhra cuisine especially in and around Guntur region. These leaves are used in various dishes in everyday cooking. Apart from the pickle, other popular dishes are gongura pappu, gongura mamsam, gongura royalu, chicken curry and dry gongura chicken fry which are prepared with these red sorrel leaves. I am sharing 2 recipes in this post. One is made like the nilava pachadi or pickle and the other one is a chutney.

Method 1 – gongura pickle

To make this pachadi, I cleaned and plucked the leaves first. Then measured them tightly to fill a 3 liters pot. This is just for you to know how much I used for this recipe. Rinsed them thoroughly few times in clean water, drained them and then spread them on a clean cotton cloth. The leaves must wilt slightly on their own and no moisture should be left. It just took 10 hours for me on a hot day.

How to make gongura pachadi

  1. Heat 3 to 4 tbsp oil in a pan.
  2. Add the leaves to the hot pan.
  3. Fry until the leaves wilt completely. Set them aside to cool completely.
  4. To the same pan, add more oil and fry the red chilies until crisp. Switch off and add cumin/ jeera.
  5. When they cool down add them to a blender along with garlic and salt.Blend until smooth.
  6. Add the leaves and pulse to get a coarse texture.
  7. Traditionally pachadi is made coarse. You can temper with curry leaves, chana dal and urad dal if desired. Adjust salt and spice now. If it is not spicy enough, fry more red chilies & blend. Then mix with gongura pickle. Transfer to a clean air tight glass jar and store in the refrigerator.

Method 2 – gongura chutney

This chutney is prepared in many ways, but this is how my mom prepares. Many like to temper the chutney with shrimps / prawns (crispy deep fried or tawa fried). Since my mom tempers it with Vadiyalu and majjiga mirapakayalu. You can even use white sesame seeds. If you haven’t tried with this kind of a tempering, do try it. I have given the recipe in the recipe card below. for more pachadi or chutney recipes, checkgreen tomato chutneybeerakaya pachadimenthakku pachadidondakaya pachadi

Recipe card