Food for the season
Muddapappu avakai annam is getting popular on restaurant menus
f there is one unassuming Telugu household dish that rose to commercial popularity eortlessly it is the muddapappu avakai annam. The simple no-hassle dish with only three ingredients requires no special preparation; all it needs is assembling.
Muddapappu avakai annam (MAA) get its name from the three things that go into making the dish – muddapappu (tuvar dal cooked with salt to a thick consistency), avakai (the famous Telugu mango pickle) and annam (cooked rice). This is a quick-x dish that also has the tag of Telugu comfort food. When fresh avakai (hyperlink of avakai) is prepared every summer, having annam with muddapappu and avakai is a family ritual.
To make this, cooked dal is added to hot rice, and a generous helping of avakai is added to it and mixed well. Once all are mixed, the red colour from the avakai should dominate the dish. It is topped with a dollop of neyyi (ghee) and served with papad or appalam on the side. Do note that it is mixed at home by each individual, and not served out of a serving bowl. So each person has their own proportion of pappu, avakai and ghee.
Though extremely popular, this dish didn’t realise its commercial potential until a few years ago. No one knows exactly when it dish sneaked out of Telugu homes and made its way to restaurant menus.
Restaurateur Sampath Tummula recollects having it rst at a bar in Visakhapatnam (Andhra Pradesh). Sampath says, “Fifteen years ago, I had this combo at Xtreme Sports Bar. I ordered it out of curiosity to see
Ihow something that we assemble on our plates at home is presented and sold commercially. Once it came, I enjoyed it and appreciated the importance of Telugu comfort food on a bar menu.”
A few years later he saw the same dish as the signature dish at N-Convention in Hyderabad.
According to Sampath, the dish gained popularity in Hyderabad post-Covid, driven by a boom in interest in hyperlocal Telugu cuisine. Sampath says,
“This is when the focus turned to dishes like MAA, sambar annam, pappucharu annam etc. It is undoubtedly a frequently ordered dish and diners often like to pair it with dry non-vegetarian sides.”
Samhitha Gadde of Krishna’s Kitchen in Madhapur attributes the popularity of MAA in Hyderabad at restaurants to N-Convention’s banquet menu. Samhitha says, “Homely comfort dishes nd huge takers. Which is why apart from MAA, the sambar annam and perugu annam are our bigger sellers after biryani. We keep the mix of MAA open to customisations like more pappu or less avakai or more ghee etc.
The restaurant version of MAA has a tweak to it to keep it mushy. Instead of thick, cooked dal, a slightly runny dal is used. Soft rice is added to it, and topped with ghee. Then the pickle is mixed in, and topped with another dose of ghee. Finally, it given one nal boil to bring it all together.