Mango chutney and other thoughts

Yesterday, I've published in Noise a photo of mango chutney and promised that I would later explain here in detail how I had made it.

As some of you may already know, I live in Venezuela, and here in some areas of the country, mango trees grow everywhere. If we had a national fruit, it would be the mango for sure.

We have many varieties of mangoes. The ones I like the most are what we call Mangos de injerto. And I also love Mangas that are bigger. There are also Mangos de Bocado and Mangos de injerto. We commonly know them as creole mangoes or garden mangoes. These always bring me fond memories of my childhood. My uncle in his house had an immense mango tree around which I used to play with my cousins. A swing hung from the tree, and we used to took turns to use it while we ate green mangoes with salt. We also used to have fun trying to pick the ripe mangoes from the tree.

A couple of days ago, one of my aunts called me to go to her place to pick some mangos. One of the mango trees in front of her house had so many fruits that one of its branches had fallen down, leaving a lot of mangoes in her front garden.

The ones that I was given were garden mangoes. These are not the ones I like the most to eat raw. And as they ripen very quickly, what I use to do is cut them and freeze them to use later in smoothies. But this time, I wanted to try something different. My first thought was making mango jam. But then it thought, why not trying to make a chutney?. I love it, and I haven't eaten it for a long time.

Mango Chutney

But to understand us well. What is a chutney? Chutney is a sweet and sour seasoning that can be made with both fruits and vegetables. They are cooked like a jam adding spices, vinegar, and sugar. But since I am not an expert on this, here I show you what Wikipedia says about what chutney is.

A chutney is a family of condiments or sauces in the cuisines of the Indian subcontinent. Chutneys may be realized in such forms as a tomato relish, a ground peanut garnish, yogurt or curd, cucumber, spicy coconut, spicy onion or mint dipping sauce.

A common variant in Anglo-Indian cuisine uses a tart fruit such as sharp apples, rhubarb or damson pickle made milder by an equal weight of sugar. Vinegar was added to the recipe for English-style chutney that traditionally aims to give a long shelf life so that autumn fruit can be preserved for use throughout the year

I'd tried mango chutney but never made it before. So I browsed some recipes on the internet. I found several mango chutneys recipes, some added onion, red bell pepper, raisins, and so on. But none of them convinced me completely. So I decided to make my own version, mixing some of the ingredients I'd look at on the recipes.

So this is what I used to make my mango chutney. Mangoes (2 cups of diced mangoes), sugar (1 cup), white vinegar (1/2 cup), a couple of garlic cloves, 1 medium red chili, grated fresh ginger (approx 2 spoons), ground cumin, ground cinnamon, ground cardamom, ground turmeric, coriander seed, cloves, salt and pepper, and corn oil.

And for the preparation, I sauteed in corn oil, the chili, and garlic cut into very small pieces, together with the grated ginger for approx a minute. I used corn oil because of its neutral flavor.

Then, I added all the spices and finally the mango, the sugar, and the vinegar.

I brought it to a boil and then cooked it over low heat for about an hour. And voila, the Mango Chutney was ready.

I still have some green mangoes from this batch, and I still don't know what to do with them. Here in Venezuela, a jelly is usually made with green mangoes. But maybe, I'll better make a green mango ceviche to use later in salads.

So when it comes to mangoes, I live in a land blessed with their fruits. Some time ago, someone, I don't remember who told me that we in Venezuela would not starve to death thanks to mangoes. Unfortunately, those words were somehow prophetic. In recent years with the terrible economic crisis that plagues the country. It's so common to see people picking mangoes on the sidewalks or trying to knock them out of the trees in the streets to feed their families. I suppose it's a better alternative than to search among the trash as many have to do. But not for that a less frustrating and harsh reality that we see around us here every day, and that it seems that still has no clear signs of improvement.

But since this was a joyous post to tell you about how I had prepared my mango chutney, I leave here my random thoughts around mangoes for today.

If you have read this far, thank you very much! If you have any idea of ​​what to prepare with mangoes. I would love to read it in the comments. If you enjoy reading this, I would greatly appreciate any feedback.

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All images are mine.

And if you are in Noise, you'll find me as CoquiCoin as well.

July, 3, 2021.