Tora/taikile leaves and jackfruit seeds sabzi

It was during couch surfing at Ganesh Kamath’s house in Padubelle that we got to taste this delicioius sabzi. His wife just went out, plucked these leaves and made the sabzi. My husband and I liked it. Then we were driving in Kerala and I saw many people stopping cars on the way to pluck some leaves from the road side. I got curious and asked one of them. He told it was to make sabzi and I saw that it was the same leaves that had in Padubelle.

On reaching back home, my husband located the plant growing in an empty plot near our house. He brought some leaves and since I had some jackfruit seeds at home, I prepared this sabzi.

Ingredients:

3 cups of Tora leaves, cleaned, washed and cut

1 cup of jackfruit seeds, cooked, peeled and cut into four

1 tbsp oil

½ tsp mustard seeds

6 flakes of crushed garlic

Salt to taste

1/3 tsp turmeric powder

½ tsp red chilli powder

1 tsp coriander powder

½ tsp garam masala powder

½ tbsp tamarind pulp

Instructions:

- Heat oil in a pan, add mustard seeds. When they splutter, add the cut leaves. Stir for a minute, add the seeds and all masala powders, salt, tamarind pulp.

- Cover and cook till done.

Pay attention:

There is another plant with very similar leaves but it is not edible. Tora has six leaves on a branch and this plant has eight.

Tora leaves are shiny, thicker and the non edible leaves are thinner and sort of leathery.

Tora leaves have smooth tips and the other one has pointed tip.

Tora leaves remain fresh after plucking, whereas the non edible leaves become pliable in a matter of minutes.

When you break the stem of tora leaf, it has a nutty smell. The other plant has a fruity smell.