Imli ki meethi chutney

Imli ki meethi chutney (sweet tamarind chutney) is loved by all age groups. Indian chats (snack) are incomplete without chutney – either sweet or savory. Buy samosa or kachori and you will get sweet and savory chutneys along with them.

Bhel puri, Sev puri, Dahi puri, Papdi chaat or Dahi vada; all are incomplete without chutney. At my parents’ house, we never bought any chats. My mother used to prepare everything from the scratch. So, after my marriage, I also continued the same tradition. Preparing savory chutney with coriander or mint leaves is regular in my kitchen. But I always felt a little lazy to prepare imli ki meethi chutney at frequent intervals and so instead I started preparing in enough quantity that it will last for 6 months.

While cooking sweet tamarind chutney you might not be able to figure out exactly how it tastes because flavors really taste better the next day. Therefore, you wait till the next day for the developed taste and if you feel something is less or missing, add accordingly and boil a little bit more.

Ingredients :

120 gm tamarind
3 +1/2 cups water
300 gm sugar/jaggery powder
5 dates

For the rest of the ingredients, I am not giving specific measurements as you can add them according to your taste. You can prepare it as sweet tamarind chutney or it could be tangy tamarind chutney by reducing the sugar a little bit – choice is completely yours!

White salt
Black salt
Ginger powder
Garam masala powder
Red chili powder

Process :

Soak tamarind in 2 cups of water for 2 hours.

In a separate pan soak dates in water.

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After 2 hours, mash tamarind and sieve it. Add the rest of the water in tamarind, mash it and sieve it again so that the whole pulp comes out.

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Boil this sieved tamarind water and pulp on sim heat by adding de-seeded dates and sugar for at least 1+1/2 to 2 hours. If you are interested in thick consistency, boil for at least 2 hours but if you like thin consistency, boil for 1 to 1+1/2 hours. Just 10 minutes before the chutney is done, add the rest of the ingredients as per your taste.

Imli ki meethi chutney

Let the chutney cool down completely before filling in an airtight container and storing that in the fridge.

Imli ki chutney is ready !

Imli ki meethi chutney

 

 
Strawberry Sauce

Strawberry sauce

Strawberry is a beautiful fruit!!! But I never thought of preparing strawberry sauce. I had always enjoyed this fruit in its raw form. And no one else in the house shares strawberry with me, strange… but true!!! And I am not even complaining …! But this winter season I decided to go one step further with strawberries and prepared strawberry sauce. I am planning to freeze it to relish during summer with ice-cream. My husband Manish and daughter Apoorva, both don’t even try to taste this fruit. So after preparing sauce I forced both of them to taste it and to my utmost surprise they both liked it a lot!

That was an achievement!!!!!

Strawberry Sauce

Strawberries

 

I guess the reason why they both liked homemade strawberry sauce was because it was not overly sweet in taste as strawberries were little tangy in taste. I didn’t add too much sugar to cover up the whole tart taste. It was a perfect balance of sweet and tangy flavor.

In my opinion if you are preparing strawberry sauce, decide the amount of sugar depending on the sweet or sour taste of strawberries. If fruit is too sweet, reduce the amount of sugar and add little quantity of lemon juice in the end of preparation.

In case if you are more interested to prepare strawberry compote, follow the same process. The only difference would be that for compote we don’t cook strawberries for a longer time. Compote is ready within 10 minutes of cooking and sauce is cooked on sim heat for 25-30 minutes because we need to thicken it. Later while in the fridge it thickens more.

I have Salted Caramel Sauce recipe also in the blog. If you are interested ,can check that also.

Ingredients :

Strawberries 1/2 kg

Granulated sugar 1/3 cup

Lemon juice 1/2 tbsp (optional)

Process :

Wash strawberries nicely in running water and keep them on a sieve to drain our all water.

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Remove green leaves from the fruit and slice each strawberry in 4 pieces.

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In a thick bottomed saucepan combine strawberries and sugar and start cooking on medium to sim heat.

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Keep stirring it until strawberries start leaving their juice and sugar melts completely.

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Now keep the heat on sim and let it cook for 25 – 30 minutes. Occasionally keep stirring them.

Strawberry sauce

Sauce will thicken up and it will be in deep dark red colour in half an hour.

Switch off heat and taste it. If it tastes very sweet add 1/2 tbsp lemon juice to add slight tangy flavor and let it cool down completely. If you want to use this sauce in between the layers of cake or cheesecake in slightly more refined way, you can puree it in mixer, sieve it and use as filling.

Store in a neat bottle in the fridge for 10-12 days but I really doubt it will last that long. Your kids will be finding an excuse to stay near the refrigerator to lick it again and again!!!

Are you planning to prepare this delicious kid’s favorite fruit sauce? I think you should.. . because once your first bottle is over, you can again prepare fresh one. After all nothing is better than fresh home made sauce!!!

Would love to hear from you all through the comments section ❤️❤️.

Strawberry sauce