This chutney is LONG overdue. On my last chutney post, way back in May, my sweet Greek friend Ivy @ Kopiaste had asked for a fruit chutney. With that in mind,
I bought some dried Turkish Apricots to make a fruit chutney for her; then life took off in some other direction.
The poor apricots sat silently in the corner of my cupboard lost in oblivion. I tripped across the poor mites day before, & put making this chutney on priority. At that time, Ivy said of my green chutney…”This sounds lovely. This is something I would like to try when and if I find fresh coriander. Thanks for explaining what chutney means. Please post a fruit chutney.”
I’m sorry it’s taken me this long Ivy…but better late than never I guess! This one’s for you!!
Chutney is a term for a variety of sweet and spicy condiments, usually involving a fresh, chopped primary vegetable or fruit with added seasonings. Chutney, as a genre, is often similar to the Indian pickle and the salsa of Latin American cuisine, or European relish. Chutney is more familiar in North America and Europe in a form that can be stored. To this end, vegetable oil, vinegar, or lemon juice are used to enhance the keeping properties.
Chutney is a delectable accompaniment to roasted and grilled meats, fish and Indian curry dishes. Delicious on a cracker with hard or soft cheeses. Ideal as a marinade for the grill. Although chutney is most widely known as a condiment originating in India, the concept has spread worldwide and mutated to suit local needs. The term chutney that comes from the East Indian Chatni, meaning “strongly spiced”, and is described as a condiment which usually consists of a mix of chopped fruits, vinegar, spices and sugar cooked into a chunky spread.
Apricot Chutney (Khubaniki Chutney) Ingredients: Dried Apricots – 200gms; soaked overnight in 1 cup of water (soaking is optional) Golden raisins – 1/4 cup (chopped) Water – 1/4 cup Garammasala – 1 tsp Brown sugar – 1/2 cup Ginger paste – 1 tsp Malt vinegar – 1 cup Roasted red chili flakes – 1/2 tsp Salt – 1 tsp Method:
Chop up the soaked apricots as fine or as chunky as you’d like your chutney to be.
Put all the ingredients into a medium saucepan and mix together thoroughly. (If you haven’t soaked the apricots overnight, add a cup of water)
Bring to boil, low the heat and simmer for 30-35 minutes, stirring occasionally.
When the chutney has thickened to a fairly thick consistency, transfer into a clean jam jar.
Allow to cool. Close the lid and store refrigerated.
Note: Chutneys are very accommodating! Eyeball amounts as you like. Add or omit ingredients as you desire. Keep the vinegar as it acts as a preservative. Orange zest, candied ginger, grated apples, cranberries, pepper…anything can be added. That’s the joy of chutney. Be sure to taste it all along…it’s very satisfying of course, addictive too, but goes on to tell you if you need to balance the sweetness etc!!
Serving suggestions : A perfect accompaniment to roasted / grilled meat and fish, game and curry dishes. Great as a marinade for grilling, or as a dip with tortilla chips. Delicious spread with hard or soft cheeses, petit four toppings etc.
The mango season cometh, & now, the mango season goeth!! I think it’s now sadly the fag end of the much touted & celebrated mango season in India…& all stone fruits have beaten a retreat one by one. We are enjoying the last clutch of pretty expensive mangoes which are tortuously bidding us adieu…which meant it was time to make a mangoee something with chocolate for Meeta’sWhat’s For Lunch Honey? for her event, Monthly Mingle August 2008: Fruit & Chocolate. She called for a combination of fruit & chocolate & I thought this up on a day I had been run desperately up the wall by my pre-teen!! I was ready to burst, so I took self-imposed exile, thought it better to positively use my angry energy & thought this combination up. Recharged & ready to go…I made this Mango Jelly Mousse with Chocolate! It was light, fresh & delicious. I was thrilled because it tasted really nice. Dressed it up with some bling, thanks to an idea I saw at Helen’s @ Tartlette, where she used beaten silver paper sheets to garnish.
The good thing about this fruity delight is that it can me made in advance & can sit in the fridge for 2-3 days. I dare say it would taste great with passion fruit too…just a thought over the top of my head, since we don’t get passion fruit in India.
While on the fruit story, let me share with you pictures of an old man who comes by my door religiously every morning at 8am with a rickety old cart full of lovingly arranged fruit. He gets up at 3 every morning, goes to the wholesale bazaar (mandi) & picks up his fruit. Even though I get my fruit from my regular fruit & vegetable vendor, I always buy something from him. He’s here every single morning with a hope in his heart. How can I let him down? Take a look. I also took a picture of the rickety old broken scale he uses…everything goes for weights, even stones!! LOL!!
And the next picture is of an old village lady who decided to join in with the photography blitz. She was just walking down the road selling stuff from the basket on her head. The list of stuff on sale was more than even Walmart would store under their roof!! It was hilarious…she was insistent that I just take a look at her wares. I didn’t as I was in a hurry, but I took some pictures nevertheless as she was very excited to be snapped.The poor fruit seller was not to happy man to lose his 5 minutes of fame to a lady who stole his thunder!!
Back to the recipe for Meeta… Mango Jelly Mousse with Chocolate Ingredients:
Another delightful month goes by, & finally the day is here…where well over a 1000 DaringBakers wait to post their culinary challenge for the month. Some eagerly, some not quite so…but all with tales to tell! The challenge for August 2008 was hosted byTony Tahhan & MeetaK. What did they choose for all us ‘eager Daring Bakers’ this month? A recipe from ‘my darling sugar daddy’ (in Meeta’s words) Pierre Hermé, from a cookbook written by Dorie Greenspan: Chocolate Desserts By Pierre Hermé.
Chocolate Éclairs by Pierre Hermé
Éclairs consist of 3 elements :-
Pâte à Choux, also known as Choux Pastry or Cream Puff Dough
The good hosts’ motto…CULINARY LIBERTY FOR ALL!!! How cool is that!
As the days went by, pretty quick at that, I was lost in indecision once again. Putting my thoughts into words…not quite the daily rant, but close to it! Cool & dry is very far from hot & humid, so the conflict of thought continues. Should I, should I not. France & for that matter Pierre Herme must be really cooler as compared to India & me in my sweltering hot kitchen. Poles apart shall we say? Same story, next challenge. Will summer ever end? It’s nearing the end of the month & no sign of eclairs yet. I love eclairs &, incidentally, they are my Mom’s favourite dessert, next to cream rolls…oooooooooh, talk about healthy living! Ran it past DH, thinking he’ll dissuade me just this once…was I dreaming. The first thing he asked was…”What’s the challenge? Eclairs?…Go for it!” (Never trust a sweet tooth!!)
Hmmm…..so here I am, with batch number 2 in the oven. Batch number 1 safely sitting in an airconditioned room, enjoying a few hours of cool & dry air, while I sit in the hot kitchen, looking at ‘chubby fingers’! Now that brings me to story number 2.
Who decides how chubby chubby is? One persons chubby is another persons skinny…hmmm…when I read chubby, all I could think of was my son!! LOL…then I looked at the poor emaciated fingers I had piped out…nah, not chubby enough yet & added more pressure to the piping bag. By the time they were done, I had fewer puffs & quite chubby! What a word ain’t it? And now while I type, the blessed things are deflating even as I rush from the hot kitchen to cooler climes. I think that’s daring enough!! Thoughts whizzing through my head…strangely enough…”Cream Puffs in Venice”!! O boy…
The pastry is very simple; I’ve made profiteroles many moons ago, during our summer vacations, while we were still in school. Seriously, can’t remember being so eggophobic then…but 5 eggs is a bit much for me. But a DB’s gotta do what a DB’s gotta do…the choux pastry was simple enough. I painted 1 batch with a milk wash & scoured a fork lightly over the top. Said so in my Le Cordon Blue Cooks Bible…maybe it’ll help hold the topping….whatever! Now I have peace for a few hours & then will ponder about the filling & topping. Got to make lunch too! The pastry cream is out of question for me because has 4 egg yolks. How can I ever make it if I can’t get myself to eat it? So the inside will be whipped Chantilly cream…me thinks. The top shall have a chocolate glaze & time is now of the essence again.
PHOOOEEEE…whipped cream whipped, but didn’t hold volume for more than 10 minutes in this sweltering heat. Collapsed before I could screech ‘Jack Sparrow’…the glaze was tedious but delicious. Made half the quantity of glaze to cut calories (not just mine, but the familys’ as well). Even though I didn’t end up with fantastic looking eclairs with layers of luscious cream within, I did a pretty decent job. They looked pretty underfed/underfilled but pretty nevertheless.
The best part of course came on eating these wonderfully daring creations. WOOHOO…absolutely delicious to the last bite!! Haven’t had eclairs as good as these before. The 5 eggs in the dough had me worried for nothing; not even a faint smell of egg. Was fantastic. I topped the chocolate glaze with slivered pistachios, roasted slivered almonds (they tasted the best) & sprinkles.
I made a couple of profiteroles just to experiment & lined the insides with a spoonful of glaze, followed with whipped cream, then a round slice of mango. Sifted sugar over the top. Very refreshing & very nice. There was just one problem…they got over far too soon!! This recipe is firmly bookmarked to be made again in the winter. Thank you Tony & Meeta…I am so glad I took up the challenge! It was just awesome & very satisfying!!
Another happy ending to another daring month. Be sure to check out what the other DBs have been up this month…many more yummy eclairs HERE!
A new recent discovery has beenCloset Cooking, Kevin’s fabulous blog that had me wanting for more with each label that I clicked. As I said to him, each post of his made me more anxious as I went through a bookmarking frenzy the first time I visited it in depth!! Was just a matter of time before I attempted one of the bookmarks…the HOT CORN DIP!
I love the use of colour in making food…just sets the place on fire. Spend half my time playing with colours.
I had to make my deviations because I tend to avoid mayonnaise (because of raw egg in it). I substituted that with some low fat grated cottage cheese, a dollop of low fat cream & some hung yogurt . O boy, was the dip good, or was it good!! I was eating spoonfuls of it right from the frying pan stage when it had been sauteed! Just out of the pan, it was good enough to be served up as a hot sweetcorn salad too!
Scrumptious flavours…& I had to ward the kids off eating just the dip once it was deliciously baked!! A beautiful, yet explosive marriage of flavours, where it all came together to entice the taste buds. Once done, it was everything Kevin described it to be…nice and creamy and the sweetness of the corn perfectly balanced the heat of the jalapenos and the cayenne pepper… just add ADDICTIVE to it!!
Hot Sweetcorn Dip Ingredients: Butter – 1 tbsp Sweetcorn kernels – 2 cups (from 2 ears corn) Salt and pepper to taste Butter – 1 tablespoon Yellow Bell Pepper – 1/2 (chopped) Red Bell pepper – 1/2 (chopped) Green onions – 1/4 cup chopped (green and white parts) Jalapeno – 1 (chopped) Garlic – 2 tsps (chopped) Thick yogurt – 1/2 cup (I hung mine overnight) Cream – 2 tbsps (low fat) Cayenne 1/4 teaspoon Sharp cheddar – 1 handful (grated)
Method:
Melt 1 tbsp butter in a pan.
Add the corn, season with salt and pepper and saute until the corn starts to turn golden brown, about 5 minutes. Set aside.
Melt the next tbsp butter in a pan.
Add the onion & chopped bell peppers and saute until the onions are soft, about 2 minutes.
Add the green onions, jalapeno and garlic and saute until softened, about 2 minutes.
Put in the corn, onions, peppers, hung yogurt, cream and cayenne & mix well.
Pour the mixture into an 8 X 8 baking pan and top with the cheddar cheese. (I used 2 4″ round ovenproof dishes).
Bake in a preheated 350F oven until bubbling and golden brown on top, about 10-20 minutes.
This dip is en route to Ben @ What’s Cookin US for his ‘I Love Baking’ event, a baking event for baking loving people.
“I came to love my rows, my beans, though so many more than I wanted. They attached me to the earth, and so I got strength like Antaeus.”
Henry David Thoreau
From beans high on vodka, to beans of another kind…green beans or string beans. Meals are always a challenge. The need to introduce greens of any kind is usually on top of my agenda, but one runs the risk of the same thing mundanely showing up. I like to work string beans into the menu this way or that, because they are available the year through, especially in our HOT summer months that seem to drag on forever. The other perennial choice being spinach, but sadly the Popeye magic didn’t work on my kids for long.
Green common beans are also called string beans, stringless beans (depending on whether the pod has a tough, fibrous “string” running along its length), or snap beans. Compared to the dry beans, they provide less starch and protein, and more vitamin A and vitamin C. The green beans are often steamed, stir-fried, or baked in casseroles.
This is one simple way & flavourful way of serving beans on the side…
French Beans with Bell Peppers & Onions(as adapted from the Indira Roderick’s recipe from the TOI, dated 18 Jul ’08) . Ingredients:
French beans – 400 gms topped & tailed & cut into 2″ pieces
Onion – 2 large, sliced thickish
Yellow bell pepper – 1; julienned
Red bell pepper – 1 ; julienned
Garlic – 2-3 cloves
Freshly ground pepper
Sea salt
Olive Oil – 3 tbsps
Method:
Preheat the oven to 220 degrees C.
Blanch the beans in a pan of boiling water for 4-5 minutes, drain & immediately plunge into ice-cold water. Reserve.
Toss the julienned bell peppers & onion slices in 2 tbsps of olive oil; season with sea salt & freshly ground pepper. lay in a single layer on a baking sheet & roast for 15-20 minutes, tossing in between, to ensure even roasting.
Heat 1 tsp olive oil in a pan, saute the chopped garlic for a minute, then add the blanched beans & stir fry for a minute till heated right through. Toss in the roasted peppers & onions & mix well.
Serve hot or at room temperature.
Another no fail way is a simpler & quicker one, which works like magic every time…Steamed Beans in Cream Cheese…a recipe from my Sis-in-Law
All you need to is blanch the beans till tender crisp.
Drain & put into a large bowl. Toss in 1-2 tbsps of cream-cheese / cheese spread, season with salt & pepper…& you’re ready to go.
My third spin on green beans is an Indian stir-fry. Simple again…
Heat a little oil. Toss in 1 tsp each of cumin seeds & mustard seeds.
Put in chopped french beans, simmer for 4-5 minutes/ till crisp tender. Then stir fry till nice & dry with some roasted cumin powder. Season with salt. Garnish with fresh grated coconut if you like.
How do you eat your beans???
Beans that are green; greens that are beans…eat more beans!
“The centuries last passed have also given the taste important extension; the discovery of sugar, and its different preparations, of alcoholic liquors, of wine, ices, vanilla, tea and coffee, have given us flavors hitherto unknown.”
Jean AnthelmeBrillat–Savarin
HIC!! Had a spirited day last week; make that a highly spirited one!! Have long longed to make my own vanilla extract, pure as pure can be, after I saw a couple of enterprising bloggers who made their own & blogged about it. I saw it most recently here on a post by Coco @ Ambrosia…the post of the extract & vanilla sugar sure had me drooling. I had a bunch of vanilla beans that Rachel @ Tangerine’s Kitchen had sent earlier from Chennai which I had used up steadily over my months of baking. Begged my bewildered sis in Dallas to send me some…she sent me some ‘Madagascar’ beans (as she rubbed it in), & never let me hear the end of it. I hope she’s happy that they have finally met their maker in vodka, & have, in true spirit, happily resigned to their fate!!! (When I asked her for rennet at another time, she threatened to send me a water buffalo too). She thinks I’ve lost it completely…LOL…maybe I have, but this is therapeutic!!
Are ‘these’ vanilla beans? O for heavens sake, before Rachel couriered me some beans, I spent days in excited anticipation awaiting some plump looking, exotic & fragrant vanilla pods. I saw these gnarled out twiggy creatures, looking completely emaciated…& was pretty baffled. Then, when I was expecting the beans from the US, I thought they must be the plump ones for sure. Not a chance…just as gnarled as their Indian cousins…what a let-down! The first time I opened the bean to scrape out the tiny pods completely ignited my senses…there was the magic of this bean!!
The gnarly and ugly looking vanilla beanusually sold in a glass tube may look unpalatable, but once you take it out, split it open and scrape the tiny pods, the exotic aroma will knock you over. You will never want to use the artificial substitute if you can afford true vanilla. The first use of vanilla dates back to Mexico, where the Aztecs used it to create a drink called Xoco–lall, made from cocoa and vanilla beans. Cortez is credited with bringing vanilla back to Spain and soon, its use spread to other parts of Europe. Today, vanilla beans from Madagascar are the gold standard to which all others are compared.The vanilla plant, Vanilla planifolia, is a slender, green-stemmed creeping or climbing perennial of the orchid family. Cultivating vanilla beans is a lengthy and labor-intensive process, as each flower must be hand pollinated to ensure it produces a bean. To complicate matters, a flower only lives for one day. Its beans grow to between 6 and 10 inches long and resemble a green string bean.
Vanilla Extract from Ambrosia (I doubled the amounts) Ingredeints: 180 ml/6 fl oz. vodka 2 vanilla beans (or more)
Method:
Split the vanilla beans, then cut into half and drop it into a sterilised bottle with vodka.
Give it a good shake everyday.
The extract will be ready for use in 6-8 weeks. You can let the beans remain in the bottle so it’s only get more flavourful by the day.
For both the extract and the sugar, you could also add used vanilla beans – they still have a tonne of flavour left.
As I sign off this post, I’d like to say THANK YOU to Amanda @ My Finds Online for including my blog in her list of ‘50 great recipe blogs’ & for sending me this badge.
