When you visit India after a long time away, people want to treat you to something special: I frequently get asked what my favorite dish is, what food I missed most while being away.

The answer is easy: panasa pottu kura - green jackfruit fry!

I guess it starts with my love of the pungency of mustard - not the American innocuous bright yellow liquid with vinegar and sugar, but the eye-watering, sinus-clearing heat of real mustard seeds. This is the reason I love the tartness and the heat of dosavakaya and also the reason why I couldn't resist Sandeepa's recipe - why I had to find a way to adapt it to a vegetarian dish (see Andhra Twist earlier).

But to get back to the recipe at hand: for a long time in the US the only option has been to use green jackfruit in cans; I hate the taste and texture of canned jackfruit though, and so I have never considered that to be a viable option. Then I found frozen green jackfruit, and suddenly panasa pottu kura became a real option again. Granted, the taste and texture can never be the same as the fresh version, but this bears a real resemblance to it.

Part of the chopped jackfruit, turmeric and salt

Now, trying to capture a recipe when you cook with the measurements by feel is not an easy task, so I found one on ammas that had the right proportions.

However, as you who are in the US no doubt know, most of the mustard seeds we get here seem to lack the required pungency, trading it in for bitterness instead. So, I add a smidgen of Chinese mustard powder to the mustard seed and lemon juice paste; you will need to try and see how much you would need.