One of my childhood memories was eating raw tart gooseberries with a bit of salt and chilli and then drinking a nice cold cup of water. The water tastes refreshingly sweet after eating gooseberries. I am sure this will strike a chord with almost all of my Indian friends as they would have tried it at some time in their youth. Only recently I discovered that the reason for this is that gooseberries contain naturally bitter elements along with sweet. The water washes off the bitter elements from your mouth, making it taste extra sweet as all the sweet compounds get accentuated.
In 2018 I had the good fortune to stay in #Bowgain Villa, Alleppey where I was treated to a variety of nostalgic childhood foods that I loved. The gooseberry was one of them, along with the gooseberry chutney. I discovered frozen gooseberries in the Indian store and bought a pack and left it in my freezer - thinking I would be the only one to eat them.
That is when my dear sister Mallika sent me the pictures of her gooseberry chutney and the recipe for it. I immediately got to work, making yogurt rice, gooseberry chutney and fried potatoes: a cooling evening meal on a hot Melbourne summer day.
Ingredients:
5 -6 large frozen gooseberries (roughly chopped)
1/2 a cup of frozen coconut pieces
1/2 teaspoon cummin seeds
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
2-3 green chillies - chopped
1-2 shallots - chopped ( I used 1/4 of a red onion as I didn't have shallots)
1 inch piece of ginger - chopped
5-6 stalks of curry leaves, fresh, taken off the stalk
1 teaspoon tamarind water (optional) (I like the tanginess of tamarind and so decided to add it in)
salt to taste.
Method:
Blend all of the ingredients till they combine - you might have to add a couple of tablespoons of water to get all the ingredients blended.
Serving Suggestion:
With any vegetarian meal, rice porridge or boiled tapioca.
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