32 Flavours

Vanilla, chocolate, or something else entirely?

Coconut, really come on. It can be used in sweet and savoury and it’s great in rum-based alcoholic beverages 🙂

There is also great fun in acquiring the raw material.

Coconut ice-cream float using cream soda is one of my favourite summer indulgences, but my favourite coconut recipe is:

Coconut Chutney

Ingredients
1 cup grated coconut
2 small green chillies , chopped
1 tsp grated ginger (adrak)
1 tbsp roasted chana dal (daria)
salt to taste

For The Tempering
1/2 tsp mustard seeds ( rai / sarson)
1 red chilli , broken into pieces
2 to 3 curry leaves (kadi patta)
1 tsp oil

Method
Put the coconut, green chillies, ginger, roasted split gram and salt in a blender with a little water and grind to make a fine paste. Keep aside.
Prepare the tempering by heating the oil and adding the mustard seeds, red chilli and curry leaves and stirring till the mustard seeds crackle. Pour this tempering over the chutney and mix well.
Refrigerate and use as required.

This makes a wonderful confection especially when the coconut is freshly grated.

I can spend a whole evening eating this with just poppadoms 🙂