Peanut/Groundnut chutney - Versatile chutney

I am going to rave about peanut chutney the way people rave about peanut butter. Really, peanut chutney is such a brilliant, peanuttty chutney, it smacks of peanuts. Peanut lovers will love it. I served the peanut chutney with hot, crisp dosais.  Peanut chutney is also a great accompaniment to idli, upma or adai. With a tasty chutney I can down idli/dosai even though we had the same idli/dosai for yesterday’s dinner and possibly yesterday’s breakfast as well. You know the idli/dosai legacy of my family. I love chutneys, not so much sambar. My sister prefers sambar over chutneys. I think these are two fundamentally different people – the chutney lovers and Sambar preferers. Like the sweet lovers and sweet non-lovers.

I cannot bring myself to call anyone a sweet hater, so I am calling them a sweet non-lover. I am a sweet loving maniac (I ate one Cadbury bar a day every day during my pregnancy) with a family history of diabetes and a family of irresponsible diabetics and I just don’t understand sweet non-lovers.    

I can imagine this peanut chutney making a really good spread for spicy sandwiches instead of the usual green chutney. I think this peanut chutney will be a delightful change but you’d have to pair it appropriately – maybe peanut chutney flavoured spicy chicken sandwich or peanut chutney seasoned fresh cut veggie sandwich.

Preparation time: 10 mins
Cooking time: 7 mins
Serves: 4

Ingredients

Peanuts/Groundnuts – 3/4 cup
Coconut – half a medium coconut grated
Dry red chillies (long ones) – 4-5
Salt to taste
Oil – 1 tbsp

Tempering

Mustard seeds – 1 tsp
Split black gram dal/ulatham paruppu – 1 tsp
Curry leaves – 1 stem
Oil – 1 tsp

Method

1.      Dry roast the peanuts in a kadai/skillet for 5-8 minutes on a low flame till they colour. Be careful not to burn them. Remove from kadai. When they’re warm enough to handle, rub the peanuts between your palms to remove the brown skin. It should fall off easily now that they’re roasted.

2.      Add 1 tbsp oil to the same kadai, drop in the dry red chillies and fry for a few seconds. Then add the grated coconut and the peanuts and fry for 2-3 minutes till the peanuts are slightly browned.

3.      Transfer the roasted peanut mixture to a mixer grinder, add salt and water and grind to a smooth chutney consistency.

4.      Add 1 tsp oil to the same kadai, add mustard seeds and once they’ve spluttered, add curry leaves and split black gram dal. When the dal starts browning, add the ground chutney, mix well and switch off when it starts to bubble. Serve with idli/dosai/pongal/adai/upma.

Notes

To remove the brown skin off the peanuts, you could take the dry-roasted peanuts in a “moram” and toss them up repeatedly (traditional way). I am not very adept at this procedure, so I rub them between my palms instead. Roasting them well makes it easier to remove the skin.