Jegujje Sukke/ Deeviso Sukke or Breadfruit in a Dry Style with Coconut

This is one of my favourite vegetables. 

Breadfruit when cooked, its flesh is soft, sweet and melt in the mouth. Mangaloreans have numerous recipes to enjoy this tasty vegetable. Some add it to meat curries instead of potatoes, some enjoy it as a dry vegetable/ sukke with a generous sprinkling of freshly grated coconut and others relish fried thin slivers of the vegetable either spice coated with the Mangalore chilli paste/ or batter coated (pakodas/ podis) as a snack. 

Breadfruit/ Jegguje is pretty hard to comeby outside Mangalore, but is now widely stocked in most Mangalore Stores. 

Breadfruit (Artocarpus altilis) is a species of flowering tree in the mulberry family, growing throughout Southeast Asia and most Pacific Ocean islands. It is called breadfruit because the texture of the cooked fruit has a potato-like flavor, similar to freshly baked bread. Breadfruit is a staple food in many tropical regions. They were propagated far outside their native range by Polynesian voyagers who transported root cuttings and air-layered plants over long ocean distances.
 Nutritionally, breadfruit flesh is an excellent staple, rich in proteins and with a range of amino acids.
This is my moms recipe for Jegguje sukke or Breadfruit cooked in dry style with coconut. We kids grew up eating this lovely dish.

To make Jegguje Sukke you will need:
Serves:4 | Preparation time: 20 minutes| Cooking time: 20-25 minutes.
Ingredients:
Breadfruit: 1 no
Onion: 1 finely chopped.
Tomato: 1 finely chopped
Green chillies: 2 slit
Salt to taste.


For seasoning:
Cumin seeds: 1 tsp
Naked Urad dal: 1/4 tsp
Curry leaves: 1 sprig
Asoefitida/ Hing: 2 pinches.
Oil: 2-3 tsps


Sprinkling:
Freshly grated Coconut: 1 small handful


Method:
1. Peel the bread fruit and remove the fibrous part in centre. Slice them into ½ cm thickness. Then cut them across to make bitesize triangles. Keep them immersed in water till required.

2. In a kadai heat oil, add the urad dal, cumin seeds and fry till fragnant, add hing and curry leaves, fry for a couple of seconds before adding the slit green chillies and chopped onions. Fry onions for 4-5 minutes till soft. Add the chopped tomatoes and salt to taste and fry till tomatoes are soft ( 4-5 mins on a medium flame).

3. Add a cup of water to the kadai and close the lid. Allow the mixture to cook for five minutes and come to a boil. Then add the cut breadfruit pieces. Give a good stir. Cook till soft/ done. Add the freshly grated coconut, give a good stir, check for salt, take off the fire. 

Serve with steaming hot rice, lentil soup/ daaliso saar and a piece of Mangalore style fried fish on the side. 

Enjoy.

Yours in Taste,

Carol Pereira.