Mint tomato & Flaxseed chutney

One more to my list of coconut free chutneys.

2 tbsp dry roasted chana dal
1 handful mint leaves - roasted
3 small tomatoes - roughly cut
1 onion roughly cut and slightly sautéed
1 small sized ball of tamarind / 1 tsp tamarind paste
1/2 tsp sugar / jaggery
1 tbsp dry roasted flaxseeds
Salt to taste

Ghee, hing, mustard and curry leaves for tempering.

Put all the ingredients in a mixie and buzz it till It becomes a smooth paste.  Transfer into a bowl and add the tempering.
Can be had with dosas, idlis, chapati, and as a bread spread. Ek teer, kaee nishaan ;) One chutney, many uses!

Note : In my house most chutneys are made in batches and excess put in the fridge immediately.  They stay for up to a week. I dont add the tempering to the batch that goes into the fridge as I like the mustard seeds to be fresh and crunchy.

Ridge gourd and peanut chutney

Ridge gourd (Heerekayi in kannada) is usually unpopular.  I remember eating this mostly as a chutney or as part of a mixed veg sambar...never on its own. Now that I've started cooking, I quite enjoy the simple flavours of a home style ridge gourd palya or a dal. But I always go back to making this chutney whenever I have ridge in my fridge! :p

The best part about this chutney is that you can substitute whole ridge gourd with just the peel. Yea..really! So when you peel a ridge for dal or subzi , set aside the peel don't discard it. Use it to make this yummy crunchy chutney.

You will need:

--1 medium sized ridge gourd, roughly cut into large chunks OR 1 cup ridge gourd peels
1/2 cup peanuts
1 tsp seasame seeds
A thumb nail size bit of jaggery
Juice of half lemon
Salt to taste.

In a dry non stick pan, toast the peanuts and seasame seeds till they turn brown. Set aside to cool. In the same pan, saute the ridge gourd or just the peels till they become soft and start wilting. You can add a few grains of sugar at this stage so that the ridges retain their beautiful fresh green colour. 

Then put all ingredients into the mixie and blend well. When it comes to this chutney am a little moody. I like to blend it into a smooth paste at times..to go with hot rice. At other times, I like to pulse it with a dash of olive oil and it becomes a tasty bread spread. So, d o what you want to! Once blended, add the line juice.

If you'd like to try it with hot rice and ghee, I would suggest topping it off with some wonderfully fragrant 'vaghaar' or 'vaggarane' (seasoning) of mustard, whole curry leaves and hing.

Enjoy!

Onion chutney

The husband is currently on a very strict diey and has been told to avoid anything with coconut.

The thing is we are South Indians and chutneys are an important part of all our favourite recipes. This is a big challenge for me..to make chutneys without one of the core ingredients. ..coconut. I made this onion chutney and it turned out quite well.  So I have it on my list and here's the recipe

This is enough to mage a big bowl of chutney

3 large onions cut into quarters. .
2 tbsp bengal gram dhal, dry roasted
3-4 Fresh green or dry red chillies
1 tsp tamarind pulp
1/4 tsp jaggery
Salt to taste
Mustard, asafoetida (hing) and curry leaves for seasoning

Take a non stick pan  and with a few drops of oil, sauté the onions until they turn pink. Then roast the chana dal. Once they have have cooled, pit all ingredients into the mixer an d blend well with just enough water. Then heat a vaghaar pan, add 1 tsp oil, mustard.  Once the mustard crackles and settles down, add curry leaves and hing and turn off thw heat. Pour this fragrant seasoning over tje chutney and mix well to incorporate.

This tastes great with dosas and idlys. I used aome leftover chutney as a bread spread and it worked well. :) so go ahead and try it out!

This chutney tastes good for when thick. I dont like it thin and runny.