The Steaming Pot - Easy vegetarian recipes from India

Ginger lovers: this one is for you.

A spicy sweet and sour chutney, with ginger as its star. (more…)

Inspired by the chapter on curry leaves in Ratna Rajaiah’s fascinating book How the Banana Goes to Heaven, I recently resolved to eat curry leaves as much and as raw as I possibly can. The prospect wasn’t enticing, let me say up front. Though I like curry leaves, I find their taste overpowering and use them sparingly even in tadka. I would have to steel myself to eat curry leaves raw, or so I thought.

How wrong I was.

A tentative stab at making curry leaves and peanut chutney turned out to be hugely successful. Peanuts balance out the bitterness of curry leaves, making this chutney not only palatable but also delicious.

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You’d expect the last mangoes of the season to be ripe yellow, robustly sweet and oozing juice, but nature has a way of subverting expectations. I cut open a fat Banganapalli this Sunday to have mango cubes as a post-lunch dessert. The mango’s insides turned out to be half-white and tending towards sour.

My first thought was to make sweet mango chutney but then the fresh aromatic ginger in my pantry nudged me to try something different – a chunky mango and ginger chutney.

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You know those mangoes we get this time of the year, neither ripe nor unripe but somewhere in between. Too sour to be eaten as-is or used in milkshakes, but not raw enough for panna. What to do with such mangoes?

Make sweet mango chutney, if you ask me.

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The big purple baingan is generally used for bharta in my kitchen. Not so tonight. A yummy brinjal-ginger chutney awaits the rice that’s still cooking.

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This herbaceous green dip is the perfect partner for Indian snacks like nimkis and samosas. The digestion-friendly properties of mint and yogurt balance out the high spice and oil content of fried Indian snacks.

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A chunky, nutty tomato chutney with lots of ginger. Like the sound of it? You’ll love this chutney then.

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