Cranberry Spicy Chutney

This weekend we went to the Farmer's Market to get our weekly supply of veggies. It was a fun trip with the M-I-L who is visiting us but the scorching sun created a meltdown situation. I love the sights of a market but this year I thought we saw more plant saplings for sale than vegetables. I could be wrong but a lot of variety was missing. We got the usual beans, capsicum, tomato kind of stuff but nothing more spectacular. I started to load the fridge when we got back and thats when I discovered a quarter of a bag of cranberries lying there at the bottom, out of sight. Cranberries are strange things. I bought them with the fond hope of using them for baking but quickly developed a dislike for the sourness it brings to any dish. So I ate them with my cereal a few times and generally forgot about the few left over. To my surprise, 6 months after buying them and not freezing them, they were still fresh in the fridge! I decided to use it up the very next day and started to hunt out recipes.

I found one chutney recipe using the Microwave in Julie Sahni's Microwave Moghul but wasnt convinced that the sourness would be lost. So I decided to try my own method of making this chutney and it did turn out tasty. The only thing I would change would be to increase the green chillies and not use lime. The chutney is very slightly sour but nothing to turn away from. This chutney tastes good with Idlis and Dosas but comes out on top as a sandwich spread. I mixed it with plain white rice and thought it was very well suited for that too! So here is the recipe for it with the changes incorporated.

Cranberry Spicy Chutney

Servings: 1 cup of chutney
Prep Time: 10 mins   Cook Time: 45 mins

Ingredients

1/2 cup Cranberries (I used fresh and am not sure about using frozen for this recipe)
1 Medium sized Onion
3-4 Garlic pods
1 inch piece Ginger
1 tsp Cumin seeds
10 green chillies (or more depending on how hot the chillies are)
1 tsp Cumin powder
1 tsp Coriander powder
1 tsp Red Chilli powder
Salt to taste (a little extra to beat the sourness)
Bunch of Coriander leaves
4 tsp Oil
1 cup Water

Instructions

1. Cut the onion into big pieces.
2. Wash the cranberries.
3. Heat the oil in a heavy bottomed pan and add the cumin seeds to it.
4. Add in green chillies when the cumin seeds start to sputter. Fry for half a minute.
5. Add the onions and fry till translucent and then add the ginger and garlic and fry for another minute.
6. Now put in the cumin powder, coriander powder and chilli powder and mix well in the pan.
7. Add in the cranberries and toss it with the rest of the ingredients.
8. As the cranberries start heating up they pop and start oozing the juice. Add 1/4 cup water into the pan to prevent over browning of the mixture.
9. Cook the contents over medium flame turning it once in a few minutes.
10. Add in chopped coriander leaves and continue to cook.
11. I cooked this mixture for around 30 minutes after adding the cranberries and made sure that there was water in the pan at all times.
12. Allow the mixture to cool and then grind it to a smooth paste.
13. Serve with idlis, dosas, sandwich, chapati or rice, garnished with coriander leaves.