thecookscottage

Mango Chutney

  Mango tree

We are well into the mango season.The kitchen counter is covered with rows of alfonsoes awaiting their fate.It is too hot to eat a cereal based breakfast and a bowl of chilled mango cubes is a perfect way to start the day. Since these mangoes have been ripened on the tree they have that especially real flavour. A tang not to be tasted anywhere in the world.
Here is a way of making the mango season last longer:

Ingredients
1 large onion chopped fine
3 " fresh adrak ginger. grated
1 pod of lasun garlic peeled

I kg raw mangoes, grated
5 cups of sugar

1 tsp garam masala
2 tsps red chilli powder
1/2 tsp dalchini cinnamon powder
1 tsp elaichi cardomom powder

3/4 cup vinegar
1 tsp salt

3 tbsp almonds blanched, peeled and sliced
3 tbsp raisins.

Puree the onions, ginger and garlic along with 1 tbsp water. Strain and remove all the juice.
Bring the grated mangoes and sugar to a boil over high heat. Reduce fire and cook for ten minutes.Add the juice of ginger, garlic and onions as well as all the masalas. Cook till the mixture thickens and is almost set. Add the salt and vinegar and continue to cook for a further five minutes.Take off the fire, stir in the almonds and raisins and let it cool.
Bottle in sterilised jars.
Keep for a week before opening. This allows the flavours to combine and develop.

For a lot more on pickles visit http://a-perfect-bite.blogspot.com/ where Rushina interviews Usha of "Usha's Pickle Digest" and gives you a chance to win a copy of that wonderful book.

Green Tomato Chutney

Mapusa Market, Goa

Friday is market day in Mapusa, a small town in the heart of Bardez district in Goa. It's madness there, picking your way through cauliflowers, cabbage, and beans of all kind. And baby clothes, plastic tablecloths and small wooded stools. And 'antiques', bedcovers and herbal medicines. Plus the tribal women from Karnataka, women with their mirror worked cloth bags waiting to make a killing on some unsuspecting soul, who is most likely to be an Indian tourist. It's amazing how European and British tourists learn, in two days flat, how to drive a hard bargain. It is more difficult to extract a 1 rupee coin out of a backpacker's pocket than to perform dental surgery. So the tribal women are in for some more rude shocks during the day.

Meanwhile we enjoy the riot of colour, the smells of dried fish and spices, the goan sausages and papayas and the sounds of a thousand voices in Konkani .
Since I'm into low calorie and vegetarian recipes right now I see the vegetables more than anything else. Tomatoes are all over the place. Green tomatoes particularly caught my eye. I never seem to get them when I want them. Some Portuguese recipes  and, by association, Goan ones too call for tomate verde ( let me clarify, these are not Tomatillos ). Right now In Maharashtra, the tomatoes have been harvested and are a brillant red. Just right for puree but not for chutney. Here is one of my favourite green tomato chutney recipes.

Green Tomatoes, Mapusa, Goa

Ingredients:

2 apples
1 kg green tomatoes
1/4 kg sambar onions (shallots)
1 clove garlic, crushed
150 gm kismis / raisins
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp fresh grated ginger
1/2 tsp red chilli powder
400 ml / 2 full cups malt vinegar
175 gms brown demerara sugar or half brown sugar and half jaggery

Peel the apples, remove the core and chop into pieces.Make fine slices from the tomatoes. Chop the shallots .

In a pressure cooker put layers of tomato slices, apples and onions. Add the garlic, raisins, salt , ginger, chilli powder, and half the vinegar.Close cooker and put on the weight. Cook for 10 minutes after first whistle.Take off the fire and bring pressure down by holding the cooker under a running tap.Open the cooker, stir in the gur and brown sugar and the rest of the vinegarMix well..Now let the mixture simmer in the open cooker till the chutney thickens. Stir often to ensure it does not stick to the bottom of the cooker.When the chutney is the right consistency and fairly thick, take off fire and fill sterilized jars with the mixture upto 1/2 inch from the top. Cover jars whiile still hot.
Keep refrigerated after opening.
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This is quick to make, a lovely accompaniment to any Indian dish, yummy with roti and good with any meat dish, Indian or Western.

Apricot Chutney

It is getting really cold here in spite of my protestations that winter in Pune is non existent and equivalent to a Meditteranean summer. Actually Delhi temperatures are now some degrees below 0. And that affects us too even though we are a 1000 miles away.
So one thinks of soups and stews and slow cooked meats with thick gravies. With that sort of food there is nothing like a good, piquant chutney and what better than this one made from a recipe given to me by my mother. It is made with dried fruits and raisins. It cooks up really fast in a pressure cooker the use of which Id suggest for several chutneys.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups dried apricots
• 4 cups raisins
• 4 large onions chopped
• 1 1/4 pints vinegar
• 1 tbsp salt
• 2 tsps lal mirchi /red chilli powder
• 2 tbsp ginger, ground
• 1/2 tbsp dhania/ coriander powder
• 4 cups sugar
• 2 tbsp mustard , prepared.

Soak the apricots in boiling hot water for an hour.

Chop the onions and put into a pressure cooker. Add the vinegar and simmer in the uncovered cooker for 10 minutes.
Now add the apricots, raisins, salt, chilli powder, ground ginger and coriander.Remember to check that the cooker is not more than half full. Bring to high pressure ( the whistling stage), reduce heat a bit and cook for 20 minutes.
Take off the fire and allow the cooker to come back to room temperature before opening the lid. Stir in the sugar and mustard. Put the cooker back on a low fire and cook till sugar dissolves, then boil till the chutney had thickened to the right consistency. Stir it frequently in between. Check the seasoning. Bottle while hot in sterilised jars. Fill the jars upto 1/2 inch from the top. Cover while still hot. This keeps well for at least three months.

HARA DHANIA KI CHATNI- Coriander Coconut Chutney

HARA DHANIA KI CHATNI- Coriander Coconut Chutney

Hara Dhania ki Chatni is something most people love and everyone has their own way of making it. This recipe is very chilli hot , not too green and just very good.

Ingredients

• 1 cup coriander leaves (add more if you want much more of a coriander flavour)
• 1/2 cup grated fresh coconut
• 10 garlic cloves
• 4 green chillies ( decrease this amount if you don't want it too hot)
• 1" fresh ginger
• 1 small onion
• 1 tsp jeera /cumin seeds, ground
• 1 tsp gur/ jaggery
• Juice of half a lemon or 1 tsp tamaring paste
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tbsps water.

Puree all the ingredients in a blender. Add water if required. Delicious with chapathis, idlies,poories, rice , chips, and just about everything. Can be used as a dip with cocktail snacks, kebabs or as a filling in sandwiches.

Coriander Coconut Chutney

Chutney recipes

Farmers in Maharashtra eat simple. A couple of jowari ki roti, two onions smashed smartly with a clenched fist, and lasun ka chatni/garlic chutney. Lunch is generally taken the in shade of a tamarind tree in the heat of the day when the sun is directly overhead. Ploughing hard, dry, clods of soil and handling a pair of large white bullocks is no easy job, as experience tells me, and the afternoon break is one to look forward to, with a stirring of a breeze to cool one down and water that tastes sweet after the spartan but filling meal.

Lasun Ka Chatni

I think of lasun ka chatni and other chutneys as the pesto of the east. A piquant and often hot accompaniment to a basic meal whose main ingredient is grain, taken here as roti/flat bread as opposed to pasta.It is a very significant part because for very little money it adds most of the taste.

It is the imaginative way of poverty to use all that is at hand to the best advantage and luckily these recipes have stayed with people even as they have risen out of the conditions which made it necessary to concoct them. Herbs and grasses, roots and leaves find their way into these chutneys as the most well known of them all, Hare Dhaniya ki Chatni / Coriander Chutney, will bear out.

Most Maharastrians, rural or urban, like a large spoonful of lasun ka chatni with their food, and other chutneys are invariably part of the thali meal. Lunch would not be considered complete without at least one ot two of them.

Chutneys are nice to eat with your main meal or as dips, with fries and chips or julienned vegetables to eat along with drinks or with kebabs. Here are a couple of chutneys I make when there is little to offer in the house and friends come over.

Lasun Ka Chatni / Garlic Chutney

• 40 cloves of garlic
• 1 whole copra/ dried coconut, chopped into small pieces.
• 10 red chillies, broken into 3-4 bits each.
• 2 tbspns til /sesame seeds 1 tablespoon peanuts,
• Ball of tamarind the size of a walnut.

Roast all these ingredients on a griddle or in a kadhai one by one to ensure even browning. Put into a blender and process for a short while till it makes a coarse paste . Can be bottled

Sheengdana aur Hari Mirch ki Chatni /Peanut and Green Chilli chutney

• 4 tablespoons roasted peanuts. (Do not roast too long or they get a bitter taste. Just long enough for the skins to change colour and come off the peanut.)
• 4 green chillies finely chopped.
• 1/4 tsp salt.
• Juice of 1 lime app. 1 tbsp.
• 2 teaspoons gur or brown sugar.

Put into a blender and grind with 1 tablespoon of water till smooth. Tastes delicious with julienned carrots .

Karipatta aur Til ki Chatni/Kari leaf and Sesame seed Chutney

• 1 cup fresh kari leaves. Fry in a tablespoon of oil till crisp.
• 2 tablespoons til /sesame seeds.Dry roast till light brown.
• 6 dry kashmiri red chillies.
• 1/2 tsp sugar.
• 1/2 tsp salt.

Put all ingredients into a blender with a spoon of water and grind till smooth. Serve immediately. You can also dry grind all the ingredients and bottle till required when you can add a bit of water to make it into a chutney paste.

Tasty Tomato Chutney

• 500 gms red tomatoes
• 3 tblsps water
• 1/2 tablespoon ghee / clarified butter
• 1 tbsp adrak / fresh ginger grated
• 3 fresh green chillies chopped very fine
• 1" dalchini /cinnamon stick
• 2 tej patta /bay leaves
• 1/2 tsp jeera /cumin seeds
• 2 cloves
• Pinch of hing/asafoetida
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tablepoons gur

Boil 1 litre of water, drop tomatoes in for a few minutes and then transfer them to a bowl of cold water. Peel. Put the peeled tomatoes in a blender with the water and puree till smooth.

Heat up the ghee in a thick bottomed pan or kadhai and saute the ginger, the chillies, cinnamon, bayleaves, cumin and cloves for a few seconds. Do not let the masalas get too dark.

Add the tomatoes to the pan along with the asafoetida and salt. Stir well , cover and let it simmer for 10 minutes. Lift cover and stir well again. Cover and simmer for 10-15 minutes more. It should cook till thick and no water remains. Add the gur and cook on medium heat stirring constantly till chutney has become really thick. Remove the bay leaves, the cinnamon stick and cloves. Let it cool. Serve. Yummy with chips , omelettes, burgers. This is the gourmet version of tomato ketchup.

Imli Khajur ki Chatni / Tamarind and Black Date Chutney

• 200 gms khajur /pitted dates.Chop fine
• 75 gms imli/tamarind
• 450 ml water
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp ground jeera/cumin
• 1/4 tasp lal mirchi/ red chilli powder (optional)

Boil the tamarind in the water for 10 minutes. take off the fire and strain through a stainless steel mesh strainer , removing as much pulp from the seed as possible. Now add the salt, gur, jeera and chilli powder as well as the dates. Simmer uncovered till thick and all the water has been absorbed . We love this with saboodana vadas/ sago vada or any other fried snack foods.

Kabhi Khatta Kabhi Meetha- Mango Murabba

I just couldnt resist that. The title I mean. K3M. Every Bollywood movie and TV drama has the K word. Why cant I use it in my little blog? And what better place to use it than to describe the subject of this entry Mango Moramba, sometimes sour and sometimes sweet.

 

We are nearing the end of a good season. When the breaks the mango season will be over. All we shall have left is (sob) memories and (yaaayyyyyyy) preserves!

You could take the short way out and go across to Bhavnagari Sweet Home , next to the Jain temple on  Sachapir Street . Their speciality is, in fact, Mango Chhunda.( Update:Sad to say that Bhavnagari's has closed down as of July 2006)

One is hot and one, not.They taste pretty good too. A nice accompaniment to chapathi or rice and dahi, which makes a meal in itself if you are having lunch on the run.

Bhavnagari's is a friendly place and the shop boys always helpful. I am always asked how "Boss" is. You know who that might be! Their products are always fresh and tasty and I have never had a problem with their sweets, salties or dried fruit. Some of their other specialities will be featured in forthcoming posts.

On the other hand if you are a DIY specialist like me, you could quickly make some moramba at home with this super simple recipe. As with all preserves, it is a good idea to make just a small batch at a time. 

Ingredients for Kesar Mango Moramba:

• 2 large green mangoes: weigh after peeling and grating. It should be about 300 gms.
• Weigh up 1 1/2 times the amount of sugar . Approximately 450 gms if mango gratings are 300 gms.
• Saffron.
• Powdered cinnamon.

Wash and soak the mangoes in water for a while.

Then peel

and grate.

Weigh. Spread out on absorbent paper to drain off extra water.

Then weigh up 1 and 1/2 times the amount of sugar.

In a pan melt the sugar with 1/2 cup of water and heat till a syrup is made. See if the syrup congeals on a plate.

Then add the mango gratings

a pinch of saffron and a pinch of cinnamon powder.

Keep cooking on a low fire till the mixture thickens. The scent of saffron rises during this process and the mixture slowly gets a yellowish to orange tinge.This takes about 1/2 an hour - 40 minutes.Test as for jam to see if the syrup is thick enough.

Bottle in clean and sterilized jars. Cover with butter paper and put lids on while still hot.

This makes about 500 gms and keeps very well for a long time without refrigeration.

It tastes very good even if I say so myself. Soooo much better than what you can buy and it has the real colour of saffron.