Weekend Herb blogging Yongchak Parkia

The Locals call it Yongchak, the scientific name is Parkia roxburghii, and google gave reference to the english name of tree beans. I don't know where else the same is relished. I am going to blog about the same for Kalyn's Weekend Herb Blogging.

Ask any Manipuri living away from Manipur, what they miss the most and they will say Yongchak Eronba.

Eronba is a very common dish, that is had almost daily as a staple dish. It is a dish made of mashed vegetables, flavored with chillis, smoked fish and Fermented fish. Potato is the base ingredient, other ingredients being beans, bamboo Shoots, banana stem, banana flower or many other vegetables, the all time favorite being the yongchak. It is garnished with many other herbs.

So Yongchak eronba is what we miss a lot, when we are away from home. To give you an idea, I had yongchak eronba for the whole week that I was home. Even though we couldn't prepare it the way we do since we were on a vegatarian diet for 14 days due to the death of the Aunt.

We mashed the potato with Yongchak and flavored with crisp fried Onions, red chilli and Maroi nakuppi (garlic chives).

Yongchak can also be cooked with Fish. Tilapia taste great when cooked with Yongchak or this tree beans...


Recipe: Yongchak with Tunghanbi or Tilapia

Scrap the skin ( a skilled job, which is best outsourced to Manipur) with a scrapper.
Cut into half inch pieces.

Cut Tilapia in half and mix a little turmric and salt and keep for an hour.
Shallow fry the Tilapia ( Tunghanbi in manipuri) on both sides for 10 minutes each in low heat and keep aside.


Fry onions till golden brown in 2 tbs of peanut oil, add a tbs ginger garlic paste.
Add 2 Potatoes cut into slices, add half a cup of peas, add the Yongchak.
Saute for 5 minutes, and add 1/4 tsp turmeric, and tsp each jeera powder and dhania powder.
Add 1/2 tsp of chilli powder.
Saute in low heat for 5 minutes and add water.

Let water boil for a few minutes, and add the fish. Add salt to taste.
Let Shimmer for 10 minutes.

Garnish with coriander and serve...