Skip to main content

Cranberries.. again! A recipe for Cranberry 'Chunda'

By

 What in the world am I doing? Cranberry season went out 6 weeks ago, as soon as the Black Friday sales swept into each and every retail establishment in the country. Yeah well, looks like I've misplaced that memo. I'm still rejoicing in the availability of those gorgeous crimson berries.

A good recipe is one that you want to make repeatedly, a GREAT recipe inspires many other creations that become favorites. In this context, I owe a big vote of thanks to David Leite & that awesome  recipe for cranberry sauce posted by . When the first batch of cranberry sauce got used up as is, the next batch made for some delicious craisins that went into Christmas time chocolate bark. 


 A tweak to the original recipe gave rise to this weeks post. A 'chunda' - a sweet & hot lip smacking relish that is native to the Western Indian state of Gujarat. The classic version is made with shredded raw mangoes that are set out to 'cook' under the hot summer sun to syrupy perfection. Well, considering the tiny detail that cranberries make their appearance only when the Sun's moved on down south and the relish is more likely to freeze than cook if placed outside, there was a bit of tweaking to be done. The end results nevertheless, were a success.


Cranberry Chunda: (Makes ~ 10 oz)

 You need:

12 oz cranberries (1 packet), rinsed and dried
1 cup sugar ( I used white, but brown sugar would work equally well)
6-8 arbol chiles toasted lightly and powdered (adjust as per taste)
1  tablespoon coarsely crushed mustard powder (optional)
1 tablespoon toasted cumin seeds crushed coarse
Salt to taste (~ 1.5 teaspoon)

Add the cranberries, salt and the sugar into a Stand mixer  fitted with the paddle attachment. On the lowest speed setting, beat  the cranberries and sugar for one hour into a coarse sauce like consistency. This seems to help minimize that tannic characteristic of cranberries that manifest from its skin.
 

Transfer into a container with a fitted lid and allow the cranberries to rest in the refrigerator for 1-2 days. this allows the cranberries to interact with the sugar and start becoming candied.

 Transfer the cranberries in a heavy bottomed skillet and cook on a medium heat until the sugar begins bubbling (~ 7-10 minutes). Remove from heat and stir in the arbol chile powder (taste and adjust gradually instead of adding this all at once) and the powdered cumin powder. The crushed mustard adds an added kick of heat, but too much of it tends to confer a slight bitter after taste (probably due to the black outer skin of the seed). Allow to rest for a couple of days before using, so that the flavors get a chance to blend.

Cool & store in sterilized glass jars. This pickle will keep well under refrigeration for about a month.

 Serve as a relish with traditional Gujarati breads like Theplas.


 
Bon Appetit!





Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

I'd love to hear feedback from you, your thoughts, ideas and suggestions.

Popular posts from this blog

Unusual Ingredients - Unripe Blueberry Achar

By
T'was just another Summer afternoon, The kids were home for the summer holidays, getting bored, there's only so much summer reading you can force them to do, and the Indian mommy in me could no longer caution them against going out in the afternoon  (I've solemnly refused to use that horrid excuse of 'You'll get a dark tan if you stay out in the mid day sun'), and so we decided to head out to Terhune orchards for the blueberry picking. The kids never say no to outings to the orchard, they LOVE the trip there, the cute yellow dogs and the cats,  the chocolate crinkle and Snickerdoodle cookies, and they positively trip over grabbing buckets and heading joyfully towards the berry bushes... ... And there it ends, the younger one loses herself in her delightful imaginary worlds where she probably thinks she's hacking her way through virgin Amazon jungle, sighing at every branch that brushes against her legs, picks 2 or 3 berries as if they were a new as
6 comments
Read more

Sputtering back....

By
I seriously feel like this scene from the movie 3 idiots .. remember this one? The way I kept racking up drafts and eventually stopped doing that as well. Lulled into complacence by the quick high from Instagram posts. Recipe measurements hastily scribbled into a Moleskine notebook faithfully depending upon my moods. The truth is that I keep over thinking the backstories needed to make the post more interesting while in reality the truth is that ideas and inspirations just occur spontaneously (like little itches , sneezes or twitches) whenever the opportunity happens to strike. Some really cool ideas that scare the beejeezus out of me and yet prove to be utterly delightful and simple in the end. Others, that seem so trivial that I feel it wouldn't be worth crowing about -- even if there are enough other recipes in that genre that get so much publicity simply because the author happens to have the right marketing knack. So in the past 4 years that I've been
3 comments
Read more

Product Review: Ninja Mega Kitchen system and a recipe for Masala Dosa

By
 One of the biggest reasons for attending conferences is the priceless experience of meeting fellow bloggers and get an invaluable exposure to all things  culinary. This includes vendors with new products to savor and get inspiration from. I had no complaints about whatever appliances I had for making traditional Dosa (Traditional South Indian rice & lentil crepes) batter, a sturdy tabletop stone grinder that you could add the Urad dal, turn the timer on , and 30  minutes later, come back to a container full of fluffy, batter with the consistency of whipped egg whites. The The cons of this is the cleaning up, of the various parts, the roller, the grinding bin, the multiple trays on which the rollers need to be placed while transferring the rice & lentil batter, the invariable drips of thick batter on the counter.... you get the point, It takes quite a bit of time. I was pleasantly surprised when the appliance company, Ninja asked me if I'd like to try any of their
14 comments
Read more