Gol-Kaanda-Keri / Tangy raw mango, onion, jaggery mix

I wanted to post this recipe since a long time. Gol-kaanda-keri is made in Gujarat a lot when summer is at its peak. The ingredients are a combination believed to safeguard from sunstroke and dehydration. We use it as a chutney, but there is no grinding involved, so I am not sure if this qualifies as a chutney.This is one of the few recipes from my mother whose taste we can reproduce quite well.

Recipe:

Grate a medium-sized raw mango and a largish onion. The onions I used were too small, so I chopped them. You can either chop or grate onions, but the original recipe calls for grating. Take about 2-3 large cubes of jaggery and using a knife, flake it in the bowl you will prepare the chutney.



Add grated mango, onion, salt to taste and a generous amount of red-chilli powder. This mix tends to water a lot and in less than five minutes, you will be able to mix all the ingredients well in the small bowl. Do not go less on the jaggery, sweet and sour tastes must be in perfect balance, if not more on the sweetish side. This is meant for Gujju taste as well as climate, but I think it is very interesting due to its mix of ingredients. Give it a try sometime...



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Should I post recipes on a separate blog or write here itself. Please share your suggestions..

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Kachi keri ni chatni / Raw Mango Chutney

Food restores me like nothing else. And now that my blog is being neglected quite a bit, I thought I might as well break the silence with a few recipes.



Now, I feel chutney is something that hardly needs a recipe, mango, mint and coriander are the very basic ingredients. But then, I feel cooking is not about knowing what to cook and how, it is rather a process of being inspired to cook, on as regular a basis as possible, so that on your platter you have different variations of even the basic comfort food.

The sight of good food can compel you to take efforts in your kitchen too. That's why I keep reading so many food blogs. These wonderful women — Sailu, Shilpa, Shahana, Nupur, Indira, Sangeeta, and the valuable exception Mr Ushnish Ghosh — they work up such magic, that I have to admit that if I care to cook a little more than I used to, it's because of the interest they have inspired in me. I hope this mention of a humble chutney will inspire you to try out many different tangy-hot versions yourself..

Recipe:

The photo is of the mint-mango variety.

In a mixer, grind about 50 gm of chopped mint, half a raw mango, two green chillies, teaspoon of jeera (cumin), salt and sugar with very little water. I always grind all the ingredients without water first and then slowly add 2-3 tablespoons of water while grinding for the 2nd or 3rd time.

I found that instead of mint, coriander goes better with raw mango. The same recipe, using about 50 gm coriander instead of mint tasted infinitely better and retained a wonderful raw green colour that I am so fond of.

Add 2-3 cloves of garlic to the above mix, and you get another splendid taste. However, avoid using sugar when using garlic.

Note: I am not too specific about the quantity of coriander and mango. Use up whatever is available with you, adjust spices accordingly and you will get tasty variants each time. For example, if you use red-chillie powder instead of green chillies and use roasted cumin powder with garlic, the taste is very different.

Prepared thus, and stored in a clean bowl in the fridge, the chutney can last for 3-4 days. It will thicken / dry up and if you want, you can grind it again in a mixer with a little water and salt/chillie to taste after a day or two.

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