Green stuff (EWWWW!!!)

I hosted a (in my estimation) immensely successful party a couple nights ago, featuring 11 of my closest friends and a menagerie of Indian foodstuffs. I won't prattle on about the events of the evening cookingwise at this point, other than to say that if there is one thing I didn't do enough of and would recommend to all of you, it's that at all points when constructing a dish which relies heavily on spice mixtures for its magic, make sure you taste that sucker and adjust. I'd love to say that the chicken vindaloo, braised eggplant/potato curry, and potato/lentil curry that I made the other night was perfect, but that's far from the truth - one dish definitely needed more salt, and the vindaloo didn't have the immense beauty of flavor it did the first time I made it, which I blame in part on the fact I didn't use bone-in chicken as a gift to my guests and their clean hands...

On the other hand, nothing was bad, and the chutneys etc. I served with it all turned out nicely. I'm always discounting the quality of my cooking, regardless of how good it was in the minds of others. Additionally, the whole point of something like this is not the food, it's the company...

Anyway... I thought I'd post a recipe for a green chutney that several people fawned over and that I think is something worth making and keeping around regardless of whether you plan to cook anything Indian at all. I ate it with breakfast tacos yesterday, and it was awesome. It'd make for a great base for a salad dressing, probably. And it'd be awesome with any sort of grilled food, especially a really meaty fish like swordfish or tuna, or a steak.

This recipe is taken from Neelam Batra's 1,000 Indian Recipes, and is (or some version of it) something referred to many times in Rushdie's "Midnight's Children", which is a large part of the reason I decided to try it out. Batra refers to it as universal in Indian homes and as one of the country's best loved condiments. It really did complement the richness of the chicken curry quite well, and one guest in particular was nearly to the point of eating it with a spoon straight from the container.

This recipe should keep quite well, as it contains a lot of acid ... but it probably won't last long once you try it. The only ingredient you really need to get at an Indian market is the Chaat Masala, which contains ingredients hardly ever found at the local WalMart.

Dhania Chutni ("Cilantro-Lime Chutney")


Shopping List:

• Fresh Cilantro
• Fresh Mint
• Ginger
• Green Onions
• Fresh Green Chiles (I used serranos)
• Green Bell Pepper
• Limes or Lime Juice

Notice that all of these things are nice to have around in general ... and this recipe becomes a really great way to use this stuff before it goes bad. I've wasted so much cilantro in my life...

And when you have mint and limes (and rum and fizzy water), you've got an excuse to make mojitos...

I digress. This recipe is for 2 cups worth.

You start by dry roasting 1/2 tsp. of whole cumin, and then grinding them into a coarse powder. You could, of course, use preground cuming, but the flavor is more interesting if you use whole and roast fresh. You can find bags of whole cumin for ridiculously low prices at Indian markets. To roast, I've used two methods - placing the seeds on a plate in a toaster oven and monitoring to make sure they darken but don't burn, and the more accepted way, which is to toss them in a pan on medium-high heat, stir them around until they turn a dark reddish brown and become fragrant and then immediately scrape them out of the pan into a bowl. This only takes about a minute. Use a coffee grinder, or blender to grind them afterwards and set aside.

Cut 3-5 green chiles into smaller chunks, and coarse chop the green parts of 5-6 green onions, the bell pepper, and 3 cups of cilantro with stems included (almost 2 bunches, and make sure to rinse this stuff well ... I dump it into a bowl, fill it with water, and lift and separate... dirt falls to the bottom ... wash, rinse, repeat). Toss the peppers and onions into a blender or food processor, along with 4 quarter-size slices fresh ginger, and get it to a fine mince stage (this'll be pretty much pureed later, so don't worry if you overdo it a little).

Add the cilantro and 1/2 c. fresh mint leaves and continue to blend until it is a puree with a little bit of rough texture. While blending at this final stage, drizzle in 2-3 tbsp. lime juice ... this will also help the blender or food processor along... I used a blender and it was a bit hard to work with initially but by this time all the water from the cilantro etc. brought it all together.

The final step is to add in a tsp. each of salt and sugar and 1 tsp. chaat masala. I bought a box of it for 2 bucks that will last me a couple years, probably, and the ingredients involved in making it yourself are pretty specialized even by "Indian cuisine vs. American spice rack" standards. It's a spice mixture that smells heavily of sulfur because of the black salt (volcanic halite) in the blend, but this socially awkward odor doesn't translate to the flavor ... I suppose without it the mixture would be just fine, but I really do think that the unique sour and salty elements in the chaat masala are well worth incorporating.

At this point, blend for a few seconds to incorporate it into the chutney, taste it, add some more salt or sugar if you like, and then pour into a bowl or tupperware container. Mix a little of the cumin we prepared earlier into this mixture, sprinkle the rest on top, and serve or store. Batra's take is that it lasts about 10 days in the fridge, but it can also be frozen...

Happy New Year's everyone!