Avalya layei is a preparation similar to wine made from gooseberry (‘Avallo’ is the Konkani term for gooseberry). This increases your appetite for food and also acts as digestive. This was prepared in huge clay jar’s (‘Bharani’ in Malayalam) in the olden times. The size of the family was big and not nuclear like now a days. So you need to have this layei prepared in large amounts. Now since the availability of ‘Bharani’ has reduced I am preparing it in glass jar.
Ingredients
You need
- ½ kg gooseberries
- ½ kg jaggery
Method
Wash and drain all the water from the gooseberries.
Grate jaggery and keep aside.
Take a clean glass jar a put a layer of gooseberries at the bottom.
Put a layer of the grated jaggery covering the gooseberries.
Now make a second layer of gooseberries on top of the jaggery.
Cover the second layer with the grated jaggery. Repeat the procedure with rest of the gooseberries and jaggery.
Since glass is transparent to light cover it with a clean cloth or you can even put it in a cloth bag. Keep it as such for 41 days. After 41 days you can see gooseberries floating on top of the jaggery solution.
Open the jar and separate the gooseberries from the solution. You can see that the gooseberries have shrunken and also have lost its colour.
Discard the gooseberries.
The left over solution is passed through a strainer to remove any other remains of the gooseberries. This left out solution is for consumption.
Your Avalya layei is ready.
Store in glass bottles.
