Gongura (roselle / sorrel leaves)
अम्बाड़ी · గోంగూర · புளிச்ச கீரை · ಪುಂಡಿ ಪಲ್ಯ · अंबाडी
Fresh Produce
The sour green. Pachadi, pappu and mutton curries across Andhra and Telangana — it is a souring agent and a vegetable at the same time, which is why a dish built on it needs no tamarind.
What to know
Cooking it turns it almost black and collapses it to a fraction of its volume, which is normal and not a fault. Cook it in a non-reactive pan — the acid pulls a metallic taste out of iron and aluminium.
- Choosing it
- Two kinds are sold: green-stemmed, which is milder, and red-stemmed, which is markedly sourer and the one most Andhra cooking wants. Pick leaves that are crisp and unblemished; limp gongura has lost much of its sourness along with its water.
- Storing it
- Wrapped in a damp cloth in the fridge, two or three days. It wilts faster than spinach.
- If you cannot get it
- No real substitute. Spinach with tamarind is the usual suggestion and it does not reproduce this — the sourness in gongura is in the leaf itself and behaves differently in the pan. Outside India, look for it as roselle or sorrel leaves in Indian and West African grocers.
Measures
- 1 cup ≈ 30 g
Cups here are the Indian 200 ml cup, not the 240 ml US cup — a common reason a recipe does not work. Weigh where you can; the grams are the figure we cook to.
Recipes using gongura
None published yet.