My Food Story: A chutney that is not just food, but treasure

As a child, I would resist that first bite of rice with bitter fenugreek powder and ghee, or the curry leaf powder my mother insisted on. We always had peanut chutney powder too—packed with idlis, chapatis, or curd rice, because it was the quickest help for my working mom.

With time, studies, work, marriage, and the loss of my parents, these powders slowly disappeared from my life. But now, as I pack my son’s lunch or feed him his first morsel with chutney powder, the memories come rushing back.

Some recipes are not just food. They are treasures, carrying love and stories across generations.

Fenugreek, curry leaf and peanut dry chutney

Ingredients

Chana Dal – 1 cup

Moong Dal – 3/4 cup

Fenugrek seeds – 1/2 cup

Toor Dal – 2 tbsp

Urad Dal (split) – 3/4 cup

Rice – 2 tspn

Cumin – 5 tbsp  

Black pepper – 3 tbsp

Asafoetida – One-and-a-half tsp

Dry, grated coconut – 1/2 cup

Byadgi red chillies – 18

Sesame – 4 tbsp

Garlic – 2 bulbs with skin (optional)

Fennel – 2 tsp

Dry curry leaves – 3 handfuls

Tamarind – 6 small coin-sized (If using paste, use 3 drops),

Rock salt – 3 tbsp

Roasted peanuts without skin – 1 cup

Method

The key to making chutney powders is patience while roasting. Roast all the ingredients (except salt and asafoetida) slowly on a low flame in an iron kadai until they turn golden and fragrant. Then, transfer them to plates to cool. Take care not to burn them.

For fenugreek powder, blend roasted fenugreek seeds, moong dal, toor dal, rice, urad dal, chana dal, cumin, black pepper, rock salt, and asafoetida into a fine powder, and store in an airtight jar.

For curry leaves powder, first blend the curry leaves into a coarse powder and keep aside. Then grind chana dal, urad dal, tamarind, moong dal, cumin, fennel, black pepper, rice, and sesame seeds into a fine powder. Separately, blend dry coconut, red chillies, rock salt, asafoetida, and garlic into a coarse mix. Combine everything in a mixing bowl and store in a jar.

For peanut chutney powder, grind chana dal, urad dal, tamarind, moong dal, cumin, fennel, rock salt, sesame seeds, curry leaves, and red chillies into a fine powder. Then, coarsely blend peanuts, sesame seeds, coconut, and garlic, and mix with the fine blend before storing.

If preparing in large quantities, skip garlic for better shelf life. These measures yield about 400 gm of chutney powder. Adjust salt to taste.

My Food Story is a collection of stories and recipes that celebrate India’s traditional plant-based ingredients sourced from local biodiversity. You can see these recipes on our interactive dashboard (https://www.cseindia.org/page/myfoodstory).

Join us as we showcase the recipes shared with us by the participants of a recently concluded recipe contest.

Latha Shivaji Rao is a housewife from Karnataka