Today in the kitchen - Raw Mango Sweet sour chutney. कच्ची केरी की लौंजी।

Today's preparation is a summer season special and quite popular and regular dish this time around in Rajasthan and through Marwadi migration over last century across the country, it is now common in parts of MP, UP, Kolkata and many other parts of the country. We have been having this at home in Indore ever since I remember during summers the season for raw mango aka केरी.

So lets get going.. I used a couple of recipes from YouTube and mixed them. The ingredients I used are:

a) Raw Mango - 2 pcs (about 500 gms),

b) Jaggery - 150 gms-200 GM's depending on Mango taste.. sweet or sour,

Spices:

c) 1 tea spoon (tap) each of jeera/cumin, sarson/mustard, 

d) 1/2 tsp of haldi/turmeric powder, kalonji, saunf/fennel seeds, methi/fenugreek seeds, ajwain/ carom seeds, garam masala, Kashmiri red chilli powder, normal salt, black salt

e) 1/4 tap of heeng/asafoetida

f) two cloves of garlic cut to small pieces

g) 2 tbsp oil

h) 1 1/2 cup (200 ml) water.

Process:

Peel and cut the mangoes to small pieces. If the seed is not soft you can keep the mango seeds also with the cut mango for cooking. Take a small pan, heat it over low flame and put two tbsp oil, wait till it gets heated and add kalonji, cumin seeds, mustard seeds, fennel seeds, fenugreek seeds, carom seeds and turmeric powder. Let this cook till you hear the mixture crackles. Add cut raw mango, plain salt, red chili powder (I used plain chili powder instead of kashmiri chili powder, kashmiri chili powder is less spicy but gives lovely colour) and cook for about two minutes, add 1 1/2 cup water.

Let the mixture come to boil and boil for about 4 minutes and check if the mango has become soft, now add black salt, garam masala and jaggery ( ensure you don't have very large pieces of jaggery). Keep mixing the mixture and after Jaggery is melted taste it by taking out some in a teaspoon, if still sour, add more Jaggery. Kelp cooking/ boiling the mixture for about 5-6 minutes. Switch off the flame and allow the mixture to cool. It will become more thick when it cools.

Eat this delicious dish as chutney or as a side dish with roti/paratha/naan/rice or try it on salted crackers at tea time. You could store it for a couple of days, even up to a week, but since it's summer time better keep in the refrigerator, when not eating.