Can you see the red chili pieces? My blender got a good work-out on all these masalas and chutneys. The green would have been a better colour if my cilantro and mint had been fresh and not frozen, but how often do I really use a whole bunch of mint? There are only so many juleps that I can drink, thanks Beppi.
Ingredients (everything is approximate. It is Indian food, after all):
2 tbsp mint
1/2 cup cilantro
1 tsp garlic, roughly chopped
1 green chili, seeds removed, roughly chopped
2 tbsp chopped tomatoes
1 1/2 tbsp pomegranate seeds (you can find these are Indian grocery stores. Buy the whole seeds, not the ground powder, since it’ll last longer and it’s not like you’ll be using these every day)
3/8 cup (3 oz) water (hurray for my Newfoundland shot glass!)
1 1/2 tbsp cumin powder
1 tsp chaat masala (you can buy this pre-made, but it’s MUCH better to make your own, like I did)
pinch of salt
Stick everything in the blender. That’s all. Oh, turn ON the blender…
You only need to roughly chop everything roughly in advance if your blender or food processor isn’t very strong. It just helps it along a little, and makes sure you don’t end up with any clumps. Do the basic things, like make sure you wash the cilantro and mint, and remove the skin from the garlic. Remove the end bits (the bottom and the stem) from the green chili. Also preferably use a long thin green chili instead of a jalapeno. It’s a little bit of a different flavour. A trick for peeling ginger is to scrape it with a spoon. A kitchen peeler will take away too much of the actual ginger and can’t navigate the gnobby root. Oh, and if you don’t like your chutney as fine and smooth, use a lower setting or a DICE setting on your food processor. Or if you REALLY want you can chop everything by hand, but that seems ridiculous in an age of blenders.
I had to mix some of this directly into a chickpea masala, so I didn’t add yogurt, but you could if you serve it as a kind of raita on the side of a plate, or on top of a papri, like above.
Serve with anything – bread, crackers, spicy food, lentils, yogurt, beans, meats (especially lamb), vegetables. It ranges from mild to hot, and as long as you don’t add too much salt, it doesn’t over-power anything. Mmm…
Leave a Reply