Sweet Tamarind Chutney
Sweet Tamarind Chutney is a sweet and sour chutney made with Tamarind, Dates and Jaggery, and commonly used while making chaat
Equipment
- Measuring Cups & Spoons
Ingredients
- ½ cup Seedless Tamarind
- ¼ cup Seedless Dates
- 1 cup Jaggery grated
- ¼ cup Sugar
- 2 cups Water
- 2 tsp Oil
- 1 tsp Cumin Seeds or Jeera
- 1 tsp Kashmiri Red Chilli Powder
- 1 tsp Roasted Cumin or Jeera Powder
- 1 tsp Rock Salt or Kala Namak
- 1 tsp Salt
- 1 tsp Roughly Crushed Roasted Coriander Seeds optional
- 1 tsp Melon Seeds optional
- ½ tsp Fennel Seeds or Saunf Powder
- ½ tsp Dry Ginger Powder
- ½ tsp Chaat Masala
- ¼ tsp Pepper Powder
- ¼ tsp Citric Acid optional
Instructions
- Measure exactly ½ cup of seedless tamarind and ¼ cup of seedless dates and transfer to a bowl.
- Add 1¼ cup of hot water to tamarind and dates mixture and let it soak for 2 hours till they become soft. If you are in a hurry, soak at least for 1 hour.
- Now blend this soaked tamarind and dates mixture along with the water in which it was soaked. Blend this to a fine paste.
- Now use a sieve and filter the paste. At this stage add around ¾ cup of water to strain out the tamarind and dates pulp completely.
- The pulp must be of flowing consistency. So in all we have used 2 cups of water to achieve this consistency (1¼ cup for soaking and ¾ at the time of straining the pulp)
- All the impurities must be left behind in the strainer like this. Discard this.
- In a kadai or pan, heat 2 teaspoon of oil and add 1 teaspoon jeera and ¼ tsp asafoetida.
- Once the cumin seeds crackle, add the tamarind and dates pulp. Bring this to a gentle boil (should take around 5 to 6 minutes)
- In the meanwhile measure 1 cup of grated jaggery and ¼ cup of sugar.
- Now add the jaggery and sugar to the kadai and cook further for 7 to 8 minutes.
- Once the mixture comes to a good boil, add all the spices listed above (except melon seeds and citric acid). Cook the mixture on medium flame for another 6 to 7 minutes till it starts becoming slightly thick.
- Add the melon seeds to the mixture and cook further for a minute.
- The chutney is ready once the mixture starts coating the back of spoon and it must look like a sauce type consistency. Do not cook further.
- Finally add ¼ teaspoon citric acid and turn off the stove.
- Bring the chutney to room temperature and store in an air tight glass jar in refrigerator.
Notes
- Make sure to use seedless tamarind and dates for this recipe.
- The amount of water mentioned in the recipe is just perfect to attain the right consistency. It would be a sauce like consistency and neither too thick nor too thin.
- Make sure not to add excess water as it could decrease the shelf life of the chutney.
- You could make this chutney without the dates too. In that case substitute dates with the same amount of jaggery or sugar.
- If you do not want to use sugar in this recipe, you could again replace it with equivalent amount of jaggery.
- Do not cook the chutney for too long. Once it attains a sauce type consistency turn off the flame, else it could be become too hard of thick. The chutney also thickens slightly on cooling.
- Store the chutney in a clean glass jar and use a clean spoon each time while serving. If you do not refrigerate this chutney, the shelf life would be slightly less.
- Citric acid is optional which helps in increasing the shelf life. Add it right at the end of the cook.