Menaskai

Coastal Karnataka sweet-sour-spicy vegetable curry — seasonal vegetables (raw mango, raw jackfruit, breadfruit, or ash gourd) cooked in a freshly ground masala of roasted dried red chilli, coriander seeds, black pepper, and freshly grated coconut combined with tamarind for sourness and jaggery for sweetness, producing a thick, dark-coloured, three-dimensional curry where all five tastes are simultaneously present. The balance of all three — sour, sweet, and spicy — is the menaskai's defining characteristic and the marker of a skilled cook: too much tamarind makes it sour, too much jaggery makes it cloying, too little chilli makes it flat. No onion or garlic in the Brahmin version; the coconut and spice combination provides all the body and flavour. A specifically coastal Karnataka Brahmin preparation almost unknown outside this region.