Aam ki meethi chutney

Mummy made this sweet chutney using amiya, hindi name for unripe, green mangoes. Amiya's tart flavour makes it a good choice for pickles and chutneys. Every year, when amiya was available in the market, the sweet chutney is amongst one of the many pickles/chutneys mummy prepared. After making a big batch of chutney, she stored it in several clean glass bottles. One of those bottles used to find a permanent place on the dining table because we consumed the chutney in variety of ways almost whole day. Sometimes we spread it on top of a toasted bread for breakfast or snack, other times we ate it with roti/paratha with the regular meal, and then there were times we will scoop it on top of mathari or crackers or eat it plain like it was a dessert.

'Radha, now why does the picture shows apples and not mangoes?' you ask. If I were to pick one food related thing I have missed most about India, I will have to pick mango (atually there may be a tie between guava and mango). Ripe mango, though available in the US market, is not as sweet and fleshy as Indian mango and fidning unripe green mango required for pickling is next to impossible. But great cooks are not intimidated by scarcity of ingredients. They know what local ingredients will make good substitutes. When mummy visited us in year 2000 after tasting Granny Smith apple, she knew it would be a good substitute for amiya in the sweet mango chutney. So we decided to give it a try and the results were good. I still prefer to call the chutney 'Meetha Aam' even though it is made with apples.

Ingredients *
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4 granny smith apples, peeled and grated
1.5 cup sugar
1 and 1/2 tsp of red chilli powder
2 tsp kala jeera
4 badi elaichi (big black cardamom), broken and seeds crushed
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp fennel seeds ground
1/3 cup golden raisins


* Mummy did not provide exact measurements. Only guidelines she had for me was to use as much sugar as the grated mangoes. Since the apples are sweeter than amiya,I started with 1 cup of sugar and then added another half cup. You can adjust ingredients to your liking after tasting the chutney.

Method
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Combine everything and cook on low-medium heat till the chutney thickens. Keep stirring the chutney to every couple of minutes to avoid sticking.

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