Coconut Chutney

One morning in India, Little Owl and I were invited to a friends house for breakfast.  While my friend kept Little Owl entertained I tucked into dosas and coconut chutney.  It was the first time I had had home made dosas (rather than at a restaurant) and they didn't taste or look that different to English pancakes so I thought I might give them a go.  But first, I needed to learn how to make the chutney!

My friend insisted that it wasn't too difficult and so I decided to give it a go!

Here is the recipe she sent:

Half a fresh coconut

5 green chillies

Fresh coriander

Salt (for taste)

Tamarind (little)

Jaggery (very little)

Grind all the above ingredients.

Heat a pan with 2 tablespoons of cooking oil. 

Once the oil is hot, put a pinch of mustard seeds and then add the grinded chutney.

Stir it well and its ready to eat. 

 My first challenge was to find all of the ingredients.

The coconut, chillies and coriander were easy to find.
 
Jaggery is completely unrefined sugar that is used in a lot of Indian cooking.  I have yet to find any in my local supermarkets and so have substituted with brown sugar.

I was pleased to find some tamarind paste in Sainsbury's which consisted of 80% tamarind paste and the remaining made of sunflower oil, water and white wine vinegar.

Before you can grind the ingredients you first have to crack the coconut - find out how here!

So grinding...

I figured this could be done with a blender and so borrowed one... I tried every blade it had...

But try as I might it never made a smooth paste.

In the end I admitted defeat, and added the mixture to the pan with the oil and mustard seeds.

I'll tell you what - it might not look like the gorgeous chutney that I was services but it tasted delicious!

Now I've just got to work on finding a way to grind coconut - all suggestions welcome!