Description of onion chutney, cooking methods. Energy value, benefits and harms to the body. What is Indian seasoning eaten with and why is it so popular?
Onion chutney is a thick Indian sauce, often referred to as jam or marmalade due to its very original flavor. It can be characterized as sweet-spicy, rich, enveloping. With the correct preparation of the seasoning, the sensation of eating the main dish only intensifies. Color - golden caramel, brownish; consistency - like jam or confiture. Serve in separate small bowls.
How is onion chutney made?
In Indian cuisine, a spicy tart vegetable, mixed with auxiliary ingredients and seasonings, is rarely cooked. Traditional preservatives are salt, hot spices and sugar - white or cane sugar.
Solving the problem of how to prepare chutney for export, for transportation over long distances, they began to add vinegar to the composition - first apple cider, and then white. This seasoning is already replacing traditional recipes. Long-term sauce can be purchased at the store, instead of wasting time on daily preparation.
The onion chutney recipe is so simple that a novice culinary specialist who is unfamiliar not only with Indian cuisine, but also does not have the skills to cook multi-component dishes, can handle cooking. If heat treatment is not planned, then you can reduce the time spent on the future masterpiece. Thorough slicing is unnecessary. The sauce is grinded until smooth. But before cooking (stewing), all the ingredients must be thoroughly chopped. All pieces should be boiled to one state.
Ways to make onion chutney:
- Traditional quick recipe … Any vegetable oil other than olive oil, 2 tbsp. l., heated in a pan and fried for 1 tsp. black mustard seeds, 2 tsp. cumin (cumin), 4 pods of crushed chili (if too spicy scares, remove the seeds). After 3 minutes, when the mustard seeds stop cracking, add 1.5 kg of onions, cut into thin half rings and, stirring, wait for it to have a golden brown crust. No liquid is added, onion juice is enough. As soon as all the rings acquire a golden crust, pour in 0.25 cups of lemon juice, add sugar - 0.25 cups, 1 tsp. salt and 2 tsp. pepper mixture. Allow the liquid to evaporate. As soon as the consistency becomes thick, turn off the fire. It can be served both hot and cold.
- Indian chutney … Onions are chopped, 16 pieces, you can first chop and then grind into gruel, or you can immediately use a blender. By the way, housewives in India still use a knife. Pour the slices into a glass jar, pour in 4 tsp. ground ayovan (Indian cumin) and red pepper powder, 2-3 tbsp. l sugar and 2 tsp. salt. Leave for 10 minutes under the lid, then pour into a wide bowl and knead everything with your hands. Cut the zest from 6-7 lemons, grind it into powder, and squeeze the juice from the citrus fruits. Everything is added to the pickled onions and mixed again. The amount of lemon juice is calculated so that it completely covers the vegetable gruel. Insist, shaking occasionally, for 3 hours. 1 hour before serving, slices of rhubarb, mango, carrot or sweet overripe pumpkin are often added, but you can do without additions. If pumpkin is added, then the pickled onion sauce is seasoned with cinnamon. No need to insist.
- Sweet Onion Chutney Recipe … This is a preparation option for the winter. Marinated large seedless raisins, 150 g, pouring 150 ml of warm boiled water and 80 ml of red wine vinegar. At this time, cut 1 kg of red onion into quarters, 6 cloves of garlic into pieces, and 5 cm of fresh ginger root into strips. Hold ginger in vegetable oil for 2 minutes, add onion and garlic and fry everything over high heat, stirring constantly, for 2 minutes. Then cover with a lid, add 50 ml of olive oil and simmer until the contents of the pan become like a paste. Add pickled raisins without straining the liquid, 1 tbsp. l. honey, seasoned with salt and cinnamon, to taste. Stew until the liquid evaporates and a paste consistency is obtained. They are laid out in sterilized jars and rolled up with lids.
- Coarse Onion Chutney Recipe … Onions, 1.5 kg, cut into half rings, but not thin. The pod of dried red chili is crushed, not peeled. Fry 2 tsp in boiling vegetable oil. cumin and one mustard seeds, add onion and, stirring constantly, fry until golden brown. The fire is muffled, but not much. Season with 60 ml of lemon juice, a quarter cup of brown granulated sugar, 1 tsp. salt and languish until it evaporates to the desired density. Spread hot in clean jars, cool to room temperature and put in the refrigerator. You can taste it not earlier than in a day.
- Onion Chutney with Pumpkin and Apples … Vegetables - 400 g of onions and 500 g of pumpkin - are chopped. Spread in a glass jar, mix with 1 tbsp. l. salt and leave for 8 hours. 3 garlic cloves are passed through a garlic press, green hard apples, 300 g, cut into not very small pieces. The pumpkin with onions is thrown into a colander, washed with cold water, and waited for the liquid to drain. Spicy vegetable vinegar, 125 ml, heated in a deep frying pan, dissolve sugar in it, half a glass, spread all vegetables and seasonings at the same time: 1 tsp each. mustard seeds and powder, black pepper, lemon peel; a pinch of cinnamon and grated ginger root; a few dried cranberries. If long-term storage is not planned, you can add a handful of pepperoni. Let it brew for at least 5-7 days, under a tight lid, in a cool place.
- Chutney Sauce with Onion and Lingonberry Jam Recipe … This dish is adapted to the European stomach and looks more like marmalade. Seedless white raisins, 50 g, washed with hot water and poured over 2 tbsp. l. jam. Sweet red onion, 6 pcs., Cut into half rings and fry in butter for 5 minutes. Put sweet raisins in a pan, 3-4 tbsp. l. sugar, a little salt and pepper. You can add other spices, but you do not need to overload. Leave to simmer for 10 minutes. Then add red vinegar: 150 ml - if long-term storage is planned, 50 ml - if served 3 days after the seasoning has been infused. Cook for another 5-7 minutes. The cooled sauce resembles confiture in consistency. However, care must be taken to prevent the bow from spreading.
Indian chefs use mustard oil to fry ingredients. But you need to take into account, in this case, the seasoning will be slightly bitter, although it will become sharper. To cope with the unusual flavor, you will have to add more sugar.
The composition and calorie content of onion chutney
The energy value of the sauce is calculated for each preparation method separately, taking into account the amount of ingredients.
The calorie content of traditional onion chutney is 296 kcal per 100 g, of which:
- Proteins - 6-7 g;
- Fat - 9.5 g;
- Carbohydrates - 53, 4 g.
The vitamin and mineral complex also depends on the type of food and seasonings. But if you consider the main ingredient, the predominant nutrients are: biotin, niacin, ascorbic and folic acid, retinol and choline, potassium, calcium, sulfur, chlorine, iron, boron and aluminum.
Onion chutney contains amino acids, a complex of sugars - sucrose, fructose, maltose and glucose, calcium-magnesium salt - phytin, the polysaccharide inulin, phytoncides, essential oils, the flavonoid quercetin. The latter substance has a pronounced antioxidant effect.
There is a little cholesterol per 100 g of the product - 21-24 mg. When replacing vegetable oil with butter, the indicator increases to 26-28 mg.
The seasoning also contains a high amount of organic acids, including malic, tartaric, fruit, citric.
Of course, it is impossible to eat 100 g of onion chutney, the recommended portion is 2-3 tbsp. l. for a meal. But this amount of sauce replenishes the necessary reserve of choline by 3.75%, by 33% ascorbic acid, by 4% retinol, by 2.5% amino acids.
See the composition and calorie content of peanut chutney
Health benefits of onion chutney
Vedic medicine Ayurveda attributes healing properties to this seasoning. Traditional healers add the main ingredient of the sauce to the formulations of many medicinal products.
Benefits of Onion Chutney:
- It accelerates intestinal metabolism and food digestion, prevents constipation, has a pronounced choleretic and diuretic effect.
- Helps to get rid of toxins and toxins, improves skin color.
- With regular use, acne is suppressed in adolescents, and in adults, the frequency of exacerbations of dermatological diseases decreases.
- Stops age-related changes.
- It stops the activity of pathogenic flora that penetrates with food.
- Increases general immunity, eliminates anemia, stimulates the production of hemoglobin.
- It has a beneficial effect on the functioning of the auditory and visual systems.
- Stops the production of atypical intestinal loop cells.
With exacerbation of arthritis, it has an anesthetic and anti-inflammatory effect, reduces swelling in the problem area and allows you to maintain the range of motion. In addition, this product is an aphrodisiac.
It should be borne in mind that Indian housewives often prepare the sauce without heat treatment and use lemon juice rather than vinegar, which allows you to preserve the beneficial properties. With prolonged boiling, beneficial substances partially disintegrate. However, choleretic and diuretic properties do not decrease, the effect on the intestines does not change.
Read about the benefits of mango chutney
Contraindications and harm to onion chutney
One should be careful when learning about an interesting taste. Too high risk of allergic reactions from multi-ingredient seasoning.
Do not overuse sauce, especially raw sauce, before leaving the house or, even more so, on a date, because of the onion smell.
Temporarily refuse to introduce onion chutney into the diet:
- During pregnancy - choleretic effect, which significantly accelerates peristalsis, negatively affects the state of the uterus. She becomes toned, which can provoke a miscarriage.
- During lactation - milk starts to taste bitter due to onions and spices, the baby can refuse to breast.
The consumption of onion chutney is harmful for people suffering from duodenal and stomach ulcers, gastritis with high acidity, reflux esophagitis, kidney stones and urolithiasis. Acceleration of the advancement of calculi causes painful colic.
Despite the fact that Vedic healers recommend including onion seasoning in the menu when treating joints, official medicine advises to refuse such a supplement due to the high content of purines, which negatively affect cartilage and bone tissue and impair the quality of synovial fluid.
Onion Chutney Recipes
Thanks to the sauce, the most common food technique can be turned into a festive meal. It is customary to serve a spicy sweetish seasoning with fish and unleavened pastries - flat cakes. It can be used as a dessert snack, the taste goes well with white wines, better with homemade ones.
What to eat with onion chutney sauce:
- Royal eggs … Boil eggs, 4 pcs., Hard-boiled, and potatoes, 6 pcs., After peeling the tubers. Prepare potato dough, seasoning with butter, one beaten raw egg, a little flour, salt and pepper, your favorite spices. Boiled eggs are peeled, covered with a thick layer of potato dough, and rolled in breadcrumbs. Sunflower oil is boiled - deep fat, oval blanks are lowered. Cook until golden brown appears. Served by cutting in half.
- Cheese casserole … In a thick-walled saucepan, bring to a boil a glass of milk and cream, add 200 g of any grated hard cheese, but better than Parmesan, set aside for 30-40 minutes. Beat 4 eggs with salt. They are poured into the milk-cheese mixture when it cools down. But the cheese must remain dissolved, so after combining it is advisable to interrupt everything with a blender. Preheat the oven to 100-120 ° C, grease the cake molds from the inside with butter and pour the omelette. Bake for 35-40 minutes.
- Baked fish … Portion thin pieces of very fresh red fish (trout, salmon or salmon) are rubbed with salt and pepper, soaked in lemon juice or balsamic vinegar, and left for 30 minutes in a cold place. Preheat the oven to 220-240 ° C. A layer of chutney with onions and raisins or grapes and fish is spread on a ceramic mold, and again covered with seasoning. Put in a hot oven for 5 minutes. Fish cooked in this way has a special taste. It is extraordinarily delicate, red on the inside and pink on the outside.
See also apple chutney recipes.
Interesting facts about onion chutney
Already in ancient times, onions were one of the main components of Indian cuisine. No wonder. The hot climate and the lack of sanitary and hygienic measures are favorable conditions for the development of intestinal infections. And the addition of onions to food significantly reduced the frequency of exacerbations and improved the epidemiological situation.
Ayurvedic followers describe the sensations of eating chutney sauce with onions as follows:
- rasa (in the beginning) - sweet;
- virya (if it enters the stomach) - neutral;
- vipak (after food intake) - makes digestion harder.
But it is unlikely that commoners thought about the effect on the body. For them, a cheap seasoning with a minimum of ingredients that does not even need to be cooked was a great way to improve the taste of simple and poor food, to replenish the vitamin and mineral reserve. It is not surprising that the Indians have always perceived the failure of the onion as a disaster and endured it as hard as the failure of the lentil or rice.
Nowadays, seasoning is rarely prepared - it is much easier to buy onion chutney on the market. In India, it is sold by weight, and in large supermarkets in Europe, it is packaged in glass or ceramic jars. It is interesting that now this seasoning is more often exported not by India, but by England. A package of 100 g can be purchased for 300-400 rubles.
Watch a video about onion chutney:
