Tamarind Chutney for Chat | Imli Ki Chutney | Indian Tamarind Sauce

When Konda wanted to take tamarind water for her school weekly home science class, I asked her why she wanted that. She said they were going to be Bhel and she was supposed to bring along Tamarind water. I asked if they were going to cook during the class. She said they were going to just mix everything and eat. I told that just tamarind water wouldn't do for the Bhel, it has to be a chutney. For which she said, "You are the cook, I don't know how it is to be made." 

That reminded me that I am yet to share the typical Tamarind chutney that gets made for the Chaat dishes. This Tamarind Chutney can be made ahead and be preserved for over a week when refrigerated.

Tamarind Chutney

Tamarind Chutney

Ingredients Needed:

Tamarind - 1 cup loosely packed
Jaggary - 3/4 cup
Cumin powder - 1 tsp
Red chili powder - 1 tsp
Chat Masala - 1/2 tsp
Black Salt / Kala Namak - 2 pinches
Sugar - 2 tsp

How to make the Tamarind chutney

Wash and soak the tamarind in water for about 15 mins for it to become soft. Extract pulp from it.

Likewise soak the jaggary and remove the impurities.

In a pan, take the tamarind water and bring to boil. Continue boiling till it becomes little thick. Add the jaggary water and continue cooking.

When the liquid is quite thick, add the red chili powder. It will start to boil over.

Simmer and add the cumin powder, Kala Namak, sugar and chat masala.

Sim for another 10 mins and check if the chutney is thick enough. It should not be thin and dropping, but rather thick to touch.

When done, cool and preserve.

Imli Ki Chutney

You can use this chutney with Bhel Puri, Pani Puri, and other chat dishes.

For Pani Puri, you can make it very thin water.

Mullangi Pachadi | Radish / Mooli Chutney | Side Dish for Dosa

Next in the Chutney Series is another delicious chutney that you can serve for Dosas/ Idlis. I believe this makes a great mix with rice as well, though I haven't tasted it with Rice. When you are really up against for want of ideas to make for serving for Dosas, and want it to be healthy, these vegetable based chutneys really come handy.

The best part of this chutney is the fact that it is diabetic friendly. Forgive me for not showcasing with a Diabetic Dosa, but remember this makes a great side dish for any of those Pesarattu with Moong. Amma got this chutney again from her sister and she served this for Daddy for his Moong dal dosa. They vouched it tasted great. Since I was running short of time and didn't have the Moong dal batter, I had to make do with the regular dosa.

We have always used radish in our Sambar and dry sautes. Athamma again makes a wonderful chutney with another combination, that rests in draft for my cookbook. Anyway meanwhile let me share this simple and quick chutney that you can make for your dosas and never reach out for thos calorie heavy coconut or ground nut chutney. I know I love those two, still I realized this tastes very much like coconut chutney.

You can actually fool somebody to believe this is so!

Ingredients Needed:

Radish, chopped - 1 & 1/2 cup
Onions -  1 medium
Cumin Seeds - 1 tsp
Salt to taste
Dry red chilies - 4 -5 mos
Garlic - 3 -4 cloves
Tamarind - 1 small marble size
Oil - 1 tsp

How to make the chutney

Wash and scrap the outer skin of the radish. chop into small pieces.

Heat a kadai with oil, add cumin seeds, allow to splutter. Then add chopped onions, red chilies, garlic saute well.

then add radish and saute till they turn colour.

Remove and allow to cool. Add salt.

Then grind in a mixer to a smooth paste along with tamarind.

Notes:

we made without tamarind and it was good when served with Dosas. If you are serving with rice, you will have to add the tamarind.

This does not have long shelf life but can stay for a day.

Onion Tomato Chutney ~ Side Dish for Dosa

These days with the kids eating the Groundnut chutney, we end up making it not that spicy. And that gets to be a problem for the elders as we like it spicy. There is no question of making two separate batches of the same chutney right. so we end up making a different chutney that is spicy enough for the elders.

This simple chutney with onion and tomato can be used as a spread or side dish. When I had the other two chutneys served for the dosa, I was only too delighted to showcase this along with the rest. If you are for simple and easy chutneys, this is really helpful

Onion Tomato Chutney

Ingredients Needed:



Onions - 1 no
Tomato - 1
Green Chilies - 3
Oil - 2 tsp
Garlic - 2 cloves
Salt to Taste

How to make Onion Tomato chutney

Wash and chop all the vegetables.



Heat a pan with oil, fry all the above one by one, allow to cool

When it is cooled, take all the ingredients in a blender/ mixer along with garlic.

Grind without adding water.

Serve with Dosa

Notes: If you want the chutney a bit more sour, you can add a small piece of tamarind.

Chinta Chiguru Chutney | Chinta Chiguru Pachadi ~ Side Dish for Dosa | Chutney Recipes

During their recent visit to my SIL place, Athamma got Tender Tamarind leaves, more than what we could use right away. When we had excess of the leaves and saw that they might get spoiled, we thought we should make some pachadi with it. What we ended up making, tasted more like a pickle than a pachadi. Of course there is a very thin line that separates these two and you can use the name very interchangeably.

This is again one of those chutneys that can stay for long. And I tasted it with both Dosa and Idli, it tastes great. We made a huge batch and stocked in fridge, we just took how much ever we wanted and sauteed in oil before we used. It makes a great side dish when you run out of ideas for chutneys.

Chinta Chiguru is most sought out in Andhra, I haven't seen these leaves prepared much in Tamil Nadu and my friends are always taken aback when I make Pappu with these leaves. It's quite an art to manage the sourness when you make the pappu. However with Pachadis, you need not worry about it.

Chinta Chiguru Pappu

Chinta Chiguru Chutney
Ingredients Needed:

Dry Powder:

Dry Red Chili - 10 - 12 nos
Methi Seeds - 1 tsp
Mustard  - 1 tsp
Cumin Seeds / Jeera - 3/4 tsp

Dry roast all the ingredients and allow to cool. Then grind the seeds along with red chilies to a fine powder.

Chinta Chiguru - 1 cup

Wash and dry the leaves. Then dry roast till its completely dry.

Garlic - 6 - 7 cloves
Tamarind - lemon size
Salt to taste

Combine everything in mixer and grind to a fine paste.

Tempering

Mustard Seeds - 1/4 tsp
Dry Red Chilies -2
Garlic - 2 cloves
Curry leaves few
Oil - 1/4 cup

Transfer the ground paste to a bowl. Heat a pan with oil, temper with mustard, red chilies, chopped garlic, curry leaves, Add the ground paste to the hot oil and cook for a while till the raw smell leaves.

Notes:

This tastes more like a pickle and can be served with Dosa, steaming Rice.

Mango Thokku | Manga Thokku Recipe ~ Side Dish for Dosa | Chutney Recipes

You know how it happens right, one moment you think something, then something else happens and your best plans never get to happen. This season when we had loads of mangoes at home, I was all ready for trying out those many Mango dishes that I have filed up. When I had mentioned that in passing to Hubby dear, he profusely refused, saying he would much rather enjoy the fruits as such. I said let's see and I was more than intent on carrying out my thoughts.

As things would have it, I was indisposed for a week and by then the Mangoes vanished. So unless we get another excess supply of mangoes, I might have to wait another year to try out those recipes. Meanwhile remember I said we had some raw mangoes that we wanted to try some chutneys and Pickles, well Athamma had saved up one and ended up making a thokku, I was unclear if it was to be called a chutney or a pickle. Finally I settled to the Thokku as it can convey whatever meaning it wants. I know this tastes great with Dosas as I have been eating with it and goes excellent with curd rice, I am yet to try with rice, however I am sure it will be good.

We still have a week to go for Konda's school to reopen. Only last night just before going to sleep, Konda was telling how quickly days seemed to have passed by. I was surprised that she noticed that. She was saying with a catch in her tone, that she will soon go to seventh std. Well I said the same thing when I met my school friends recently. Those were the guys with whom I did my high school and I was nostalgic remembering being seventh graders ourselves. With a sweet bitter note of those long gone days, I always feel happy that I got back in touch with many of them. The sweet bitter note gets replaced with hope and fervor for my kids to have the best of times, to remember later.

With every little thing we do today, we are weaving beautiful memories for our future..

Coming to the recipe, I hope this gets done many times more for the delicious taste it gives to the meal!

And I am hoping to do a Chutney Special this week, I hope you come back to enjoy this series.

Mango Thokku

Over this weekend, when I was up to it, I decided I might as well click all the chutneys we ended up making. We made the Peanut Chutney with Roasted Onions, green chilies. The one I have already posted has roasted tomatoes as well. So this time we omitted that. Apparently my kids cleaned out the bowl that my sil made for them during their visits. We were surprised that they all loved that chutney so much, we found out that she made it after roasting the ingredients. We also do it, though not on a regular basis. When we have some time to spare, we end up roasting the onions, green chilies for the peanut chutney. Else the regular one gets done.

Well to please the kids, we got to do many things right. So we ended up making a peanut chutney that way. A hot spicy onion tomato chutney for the hubby and these other two chutneys.

Manga Thokku

Manga Thokku ~ Mango Pickle

Raw Mango (unripe), chopped - 1 cup

Dry Masala powder

Urad Dal - 1 tsp
Methi / Fenugreek - 1/4 tsp
Cumin Seeds / Jeera - 1 tsp

Dry roast all the above ingredients, allow to cool. Then grind to a  fine powder, keep it aside.

Salt to taste
Red Chili powder - 4 tsp

Wash and pat dry the mango, cut into small pieces.
In a mixer/blender, take the mango pieces, salt, chili powder, and the above ground masala powder, grind to a paste without adding water.

Transfer to a bowl. Do the tempering with the below ingredients.

Tempering,

Oil - 1/4 cup
Curry leaves few
Dry red chilies - 2 long
Hing - a pinch
Garlic - 3 -4 cloves
Cumin seeds - 1/2 tsp

In a kadai, heat oil add cumin seeds, chopped garlic, red chilies, curry leaves and hing. Saute till the cumin crackles. Then add the ground mango paste and saute till the oil comes out.

Store in a dry jar.

Notes:

Oil used will be more if you want to have a longer shelf life.
Always use a dry spoon to scoop out.
This can be refrigerated for more a than two weeks.