Of pastes and chutneys

Ok, so I just copied a recipe of burnt garlic green chutney from this group on FB that I'm a part of. The picture looked so enticing - all fresh green - I could almost smell the burnt garlic in it. Yum! In general, I find that I'm a huge fan of chutneys and pastes. And I find that Indian cuisine has such a vast array of chutneys that one can never get bored of the endless combinations and techniques used. In this one movie that I simply adore (related indirectly to food of course!), where the protagonist is an excellent cook, he boasts that he can make 400 varieties of different chutneys, so that if you eat one today, its turn may not come for the next one year.

One of my favourites has been the simple green coriander chutney, so ubiquitous to Rajasthan, doused with the goodness of good-ol-garlic. I remember this chutney being a permanent resident of my Nana's refrigerator. I also remember how this chutney used to enhance the flavours of the dhuli urad dal and the gobhi-aloo sabzi made by my Nani. This green chutney has been a part of so many of my tiffin box lunches with 'rainbow sandwiches' and so many of teatime 'bhel' sessions. Thank you, Ma! 

The next is the tomato chutney which I learnt from my Mom. This is a cooked chutney, made with lots of tomatoes, with hints of garlic and green chillies, tempered with curry leaves and mustard seeds. This is a sweet and sour chutney and goes very well with bhuney chawal (rice sauteed with salt and turmeric powder, tempered with mustard and cumin seeds). Another one of these cooked chutneys is the ridge-gourd peel chutney. The peels from torai or ridge-gourd are dried in sun and then dry roasted. This is ground with yoghurt, salt and whole red chillies into a coarse puree which is then tempered with mustard seeds. This chutney has a distinctly nutty flavour and goes well with chapati, rice or even bread.

And there is the kashundi, of course, that goes so well with Indian-style fried fish and chicken, scotch eggs and all manner of Bengali delicacies. Every year, the Durga Pujo festivities inspire me to try out something Bengali and this year, I tried making mustard paste from scratch. I soaked mustard seeds for 24 hours, duly changing the water every few hours. Then I ground it up with green chillies, salt and a little vinegar (to make sure it can be well preserved in the refrigerator). This paste now sits in a glass jar in my fridge and so far, I've used it to cook a potato curry and eggplant sabzi. It is beyond yummy - I just love the pungent taste of mustard paste. Can't wait to use it for cooking prawns.

And I'm sure there are plenty of others too; I just can't think of them right now. Which chutneys/pastes do you like with your food?