Peanut chutney....

Here is a simple peanut chutney, something that can be made very quickly without having to go through the ordeal of cracking open a coconut, and then scrapping the life out of it. I am not much of a morning person, I have to ease into the day slowly.... and kneeling on the floor while struggling with the coconut scrapper is not something I look forward to early in the morning. The folks at home really like this too, so there you go... everybody wins. Getting started, roasted peanuts are required to make this chutney. You can buy an ordinary packet of peanuts and dry roast them at home, that's how I do it. Store them in an airtight container and they will remain safe... if you store the peanuts without roasting them, they tend to get rancid in a few days. So always dry roast your peanuts and then store them.

So here are the roasted peanuts...

Heat a little oil and saute some sliced onions, along with a few garlic pods and dry red chillies.

Grind the peanuts, the onion-garlic-red chillie mixture along with a little ball of tamarind, salt and water. That's about it, your peanut chutney is ready, you have to season it now.

Heat a little oil and drop in some mustard seeds, wait till they crackle insanely...

Then throw in a few curry leaves and some dry red chillies, fry them around for a few minutes.

Tip this spicy seasoning into the chutney and in less than 10 minutes your work is over.

So if your household is like mine, one that thrives on dosa's and idli's... then this chutney is equivalent to manna - in the sense of how real manna appeared to the Israelites in the wilderness. It's very easy to make this chutney appear on the table... and therein lies the whole beauty of it.