Tag: Chutney

Guide to the most famous Indian sauces, chutney and raita – Italian Cuisine

Guide to the most famous Indian sauces, chutney and raita


Guide to the two most famous varieties of Indian sauces, chutney and raita, among more or less spicy, sour, spicy, fruity and refreshing recipes

In Indian cuisine, although characterized by a great variety of dishes that differ in geographical areas and local culinary traditions, one of the common and strongly rooted elements is the use of spices and condiments and the preference for the stratifications of different and often contrasting flavors . In fact, there is no regional Indian cuisine that does not have a wide choice of sauces, often used as an accompaniment to snacks and appetizers, as a condiment for first or second courses or as a dish in which to dip the delicious Indian leavened bread called naan. So let's find out the two main categories of Indian sauces, or the chutney and raita, and their most popular and most popular varieties.

Chutney, the exotic sweet and sour and spicy Indian sauce

The chutney it is a sauce spread in various parts of the world, but originally from India, mainly made with a combination of vinegar and sugar an addition of herbs, spices, fruit or vegetables. Depending on the ingredients used, this sweet and sour based sauce can be more or less sweet, sour or spicy and its density and creaminess also change from time to time. One of the most popular chutneys is the hari chutney, a fresh and intense green dressing prepared with mint and coriander and consumed mainly with chaat, or the typical mixed Indian appetizer that includes the famous samosas but also various types of snacks. A type of chutney with a decidedly more intense flavor isimli chutneyor rather a sweet and sour tamarind sauce with a reddish brown color, also perfect to combine with chaat. The sweetest and most delicate is the tomato chutney, called timander; the main ingredient is precisely tomatoes, of which only the pulp is sometimes used, to which are added sugar, onion, garlic, ginger, salt, vinegar and various spices. This cream with an intense red color can be eaten fresh or bottled and preserved and is a perfect match for vada, fried and salted Indian donuts made with potatoes or legumes, or for the local version of the crepes, called dosas. The particular is also much loved gole ki chutney, made from ground coconut pulp, green peppers and coriander and a delicate but slightly bitter taste. They also deserve to be mentioned other varieties of Indian chutney, less common but equally appetizing, including the garlic one made generally with fresh garlic, dry or fresh coconut, peanuts and green or red peppers, the sour and spicy one with unripe green mango and finally the more summery one prepared with raw limes, coriander, onion and mint.

Raita, the Indian version of the tzatziki

In India the raita it is commonly considered a sauce but given its creaminess and the ingredients used it can sometimes act as a real side dish, like a salad. The basic raita recipe consists of a mix of Indian yoghurt (dahi) and raw or cooked vegetables, to which they can be added various herbs and spices including toasted cumin seeds, coriander, mint, chaat masala and cayenne pepper. The resulting cream, with a light color and a pleasant and refreshing taste, is perfect for giving relief to the palate after eating spicy dishes. The most famous raita is the kheera raita, with cucumber, simple to prepare and perfect for summer, for which fresh cucumbers, yogurt, green chillies and coriander are sufficient. Much denser and richer in flavor is the aloo ka raita, or the variant with potatoes, cooked with boiled potatoes, chopped onions and tomatoes; it can still be eaten alone or mixed with other sauces. There palak raita, with spinach, is the one with the strongest, pungent and decisive flavor; to the cooked spinach is in fact added a mix of herbs and spices with a pungent flavor, prepared with mustard seeds, fried cumin seeds and asafetida, also known as fetid fennel, an herb with interesting beneficial properties but with an unpleasant smell.
For raita, as for chutney, there is a wide and appetizing choice of variants, including the one with carrots, bottle gourd, beetroot, aubergine, mint and peanuts and melon.

Photo: Indian sauces raita goblinbox.jpg

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Pumpkin Chutney: Recipe – The School of Italian Cuisine – Italian Cuisine

Pumpkin Chutney: Recipe - The School of Italian Cuisine


A sauce with an original flavor to celebrate autumn: here is the recipe for pumpkin chutney

The chutney it's a sweet and sour sauce and spicy of Indian origin, also used extensively in English cuisine, to accompany meat, vegetables and rice, but also to spread on slices of bread or to accompany cheeses. The chutney can be eaten immediately and can be kept in the fridge for a week, or it can also be prepared as a preserve, sterilizing the glass jars.

The chutney can be prepared with many ingredients, but it is not recommended to try green vegetables, as the vinegar would ruin the color. So go ahead a beets, carrots or tomatoes, but also to the fruit, like apples or mango, especially taking into account the seasonal ingredients. Make way for creativity even with the spices: cloves, coriander, cinnamon, but also mustard and ginger.

There pumpkin it is one of the most suitable ingredients to prepare chutney thanks to its sweetness, which is divinely combined with spices and spicy taste.

The recipe for pumpkin chutney

Try the recipe of Davide Negri, chef and lecturer at La Scuola of La Cucina Italiana: this pumpkin chutney will make you fall in love and accompany you throughout the autumn and winter. Ideal to be paired with foie gras, game and cheese.

To cook this recipe are essential instruments: you will need one sieve rather large, with not too narrow meshes (if they were too narrow, it would be very tiring to reduce the pumpkin in compote). In this way, it will be easy to obtain a very fine and homogeneous chutney. Alternatively, you can use a masher to get a coarser result, but you will have to be careful to eliminate residues, such as lemon peel.

Ingredients

400 g Pumpkin
1 Shallot
1 Chili pepper
1 cinnamon stick
Lemon
Cardamom
sugar
White vinegar
Extra virgin olive oil

Method

Chop the shallot and brown it with a little oil, add the pumpkin, cleaned and cut into small pieces, and add a glass of vinegar, two tablespoons of sugar, the red pepper, cinnamon, a bit of cardamom and the lemon rind. Cover and cook until the pumpkin is completely dissolved.

Sieve the pumpkin pieces through a sieve with the help of a scraper, a spatula or a saucepan: you can work the pumpkin by pressing it on the sieve directly on the work surface, over a bit of baking paper, until you get all the compost. Serve!

Discover the La Scuola de La Cucina Italiana courses by clicking here.

Sesame, mint and coconut chutney sauce: the recipes – Italian Cuisine

Sesame, mint and coconut chutney sauce: the recipes


A sweet and sour sauce of Indian origin and waiting to be discovered: here is the classic recipe and three unusual to accompany meat, strong vegan dishes or cheeses

Originally from India, the chutney it's a sweet and sour sauce with spices, sugar and vinegar, with the addition of fruit or vegetables, also arrived in Europe from the seventeenth century. Among the recommended spices the Indians mention cloves, garlic, coriander, mustard, cinnamon, ginger, cayenne pepper and tamarind. But there are so many variants of his recipe.

The traditional recipe for chutney

In our part this sauce is not yet very widespread, while English and French they make an almost inordinate use of it as an accompaniment to cheeses, meats, rice, vegetables and various aperitifs. Moreover, the chutney can be both wet and dry, with a coarse and fine consistency. The most famous one is the chutney al mango, which is prepared with minced such exotic fruit plus ginger, chilli and parsley, to which you can add garlic, cinnamon, raisins and dates. The recipe calls for the use of a pot anti-adherent and above all that it is not of iron, brass or copper: the reason is that the acids present in the ingredients react badly with these substances and therefore the chutney risks assuming a metallic taste. For the same reason, we always recommend using tools from wood.

Coconut Chutney

One of the variants to be discovered, however, is that of coconut chutney. The ingredients we need are: 250 grams of freshly grated coconut, 2 sweet green and one red chillies, a tablespoon of fresh ginger and one of toasted chickpeas, half a teaspoon of mustard seeds, 2 curry leaves, a tablespoon of olive oil and salt. First, cut the green pepper into small pieces and grate the ginger; then blend everything together with the toasted chickpeas and a little water, until you get a creamy dough. In a pan with a drizzle of oil, toast the mustard seeds with the chopped red pepper and the curry leaves, remove from the heat and add to the coconut cream. Mix everything well, add salt and pour into a jar. The entire procedure takes about a quarter of an hour. Put the coconut chutney in the fridge and let rest a day before consuming. The result (which one could rightly call also coconut chutney) is an ideal sauce for vegan dishes, such as lentil balls, or rice patties: two excellent ideas for original and light appetizers.

The variant with mint and yogurt

For accompanies dishes with a rather strong taste, instead, here is the chutney of yogurt and mint, refreshing and fast to prepare. They serve a white onion, a spicy green pepper, 150 grams of fresh mint, a pinch of cayenne pepper, 200 ml of plain yogurt, 3 tablespoons of coconut flour, three of milk and half a tablespoon of salt. First you need to wash the mint, drain it and finely chop it. Do the same thing with the onion and the chilli pepper and add all the mint. Meanwhile, the milk is heated apart. Let it soak the coconut flour for a quarter of an hour and when the milk is cold, it's time to add the yogurt, salt and pepper. Mix everything well and add all the other ingredients, until the mixture is well amalgamated. Keep in the fridge for at least half an hour before bringing it to the table and here is a tasty variation of this sweet-and-sour sauce.

Sesame Chutney

If you want to continue experimenting, the advice is finally to try the sesame chutney, ideal for meat dishes. To prepare it, get 40 grams of sesame seeds, 60 grams of coriander leaves, 3 green peppers, 3 tablespoons of lemon juice and a pinch of salt. First of all, toast the seeds in a pan until golden brown, then pour them into a mortar and crush them until they are pulverized. Pour the powder into a blender together with the leaves of coriander, with chillies, lemon juice, salt and two tablespoons of water. Blend at low speed and your alternative chutney will be ready. In short, it is not yet widespread in Italy, but it will be enough to try it only once, with theright accompaniment, and this sweet and sour Indian sauce will also conquer our palates.

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