Culinary Misadventures of a Faudie

I'm a faudie--a faux foodie. I have a growing interest in learning about foods and preparing them and being able to discuss them knowledgeably, but I have absolutely no aspirations to be a food snob (which I've found a lot of foodies to be). One of my key interests is in replicating the Indian dishes we here at Chez Boeckman-Walker love so much, but I've been finding that my limited knowledge of spices and their flavors severely hampers my abilities. (The good FSM knows it's not for lack of recipes, as I'll demonstrate in a moment.) Plus there's that whole "gotta make it healthy" thing, so sometimes following a recipe just isn't for me. (Again, I'll demonstrate this in a moment.)

After preparing a lovely Middle Eastern/Moroccan stew by merging two chickpea recipes from Madhur Jaffrey's lovely World Vegetarian tome yesterday and after deciding with my husband to make some chicken tikka masala (from a pouch mix we picked up a few months back at Gandhi Bazar, no less) for supper tonight along with another batch of delightful microwave idlis, I decided to build upon yesterday's culinary success by tackling a recipe I've been researching for a while: the onion chutney.

Today was not my first attempt at making an onion chutney. Last Sunday (or was it Saturday?) Greg and I enjoyed an Indian feast of mango chicken curry (from another pouch) and brown basmati rice (okay, it was brown Texmati, but even though it's from here in Texas, it's still basmati) along with a second batch of mango lassi (still trying to work out the right combo of fresh mango, plain kefir and sweetener for that obsession), chapati (which didn't puff as beautifully as the one pictured at the link) and, of course, microwave idlis and instant sambar. Since we were having ourselves a nice feast featuring idlis and sambar, I just had to attempt what appeared to my ignoramus brain to be a fairly straightforward onion chutney recipe. Long story short: It was a disaster. So we only had sambar to accompany our idlis that night.

But not tonight! Armed with renewed culinary confidence, I selected half a dozen promising onion chutney recipes (from probably 18 or 20 that I looked at and considered) to build my own onion chutney recipe. Yes, I know, combining half a dozen recipes for your own isn't exactly the wisest thing to do, but for me it's a great way to learn what spices add what flavors (or so I tell myself). Drawing from multiple recipes allows me often to combine ingredients I want along with ingredients I know the boys will eat to make a dish that will satisfy all the humans at Chez Boeckman-Walker. I scored a hit by taking parts of this Thai dish and working in parts of this similar generic "Asian" dish to make something that, like I said, all the humans at Chez Boeckman-Walker can enjoy (although for some of those humans, it requires picking out some things or carefully avoiding them when serving).

Without further ado (because I've ado'ed you all enough), here's my onion chutney recipe (still a work in progress):

2 C finely chopped red onion (a guess since I used the rest of a large-ish red onion Greg chopped up earlier in the week)
1/2 C lemon juice
2 T urad dal (didn't have, so I substituted moong dal instead)
1/4 t whole black pepper
1/4 t black mustard seeds
1/2 t cumin
1/4 t turmeric
1 t paprika
1 t red chili pepper powder
1/4 t red pepper flake
1/2 t garlic paste
Pinch asafetida
1 t Organic Zero
2 T light brown sugar

1. Warm a wee bit of olive oil in a saute pan or skillet.
2. Toss onion, dal, black pepper and mustard seeds into pan. Saute until onion starts to become translucent.
3. Add lemon juice. (I think half a cup is too much, in retrospect--I think it's to blame for the very sour taste. I'll probably reduce this amount next time.)
4. Sprinkle in cumin, turmeric, paprika, red chili powder and pepper flake.
5. For the hell of it (since I had it on hand), I threw in a pinch of asafetida and the garlic paste right as I was bringing the mix to a simmer.
6. After letting the mix simmer a minute or two (if that--I'm a big chicken when it comes to letting stuff get too hot and make a mess on the stove, which I spent a good amount of time last week cleaning, or a mess in my fabulous cookware), I poured it into the blender and blended the ever-livin' life outta it until it looked like the onion chutney we enjoyed at Madras Pavillion.
7. Because the chutney was so sour (to my taste buds), I threw in a teaspoon of Organic Zero. (One recipe called for a 1/4 t of sugar, and Organic Zero is 70 percent as sweet as sugar, so I figured a full teaspoon of it would somehow get me that 1/4 t and then some to combat the sourness.) Then I blended the ever-livin' life outta the chutney again.
8. I was wrong about the teaspoon of Organic Zero combating the sourness. So I then threw in first 1/2 T and, after a blend and another taste test, 1 1/2 T more light brown sugar. (Because one recipe called for 1/4 C brown sugar, I thought perhaps the ingredient that makes brown sugar brown might go further in countering the sourness.) And yes, I used real light brown sugar, not the Splenda brown sugar blend I swear by when baking. I figured I'm not adding that much of it, so why not use the real stuff?
9. After a final time of blending the ever-livin' life outta my chutney, I surrendered. The taste isn't quite right, but I think it'll work for now.

These are the various ingredients I opted not to add that I could have added:

• 1/2 C tomato paste (According to Cook's Thesaurus, tom paste in the UK is the same as tomato puree here in the States, so I had no idea of knowing if the recipe needed U.S. paste, which I do have, or U.S. puree, which I don't have but could make using the paste I have.)
• 1/2" piece of tamarind or some measure of tamarind paste (I have paste, but knowing that you can substitute lemon or lime juice for tamarind or its paste, I didn't want to add more sourness.)
• NaCl (I don't like adding salt, even in small quantities because I have a family history of hypertension and Greg's sleep apnea and family history also put him at risk for hypertension.)

So it's not like I left much out. By the way, if you want to see the original recipes I bastardized for my creation (monstrosity?), here they are:

• Restaurant-style onion chutney (Not mushing up the onions turned me off this one.)
• My Dhaba's onion chutney (That picture is gorgeous, but I don't have some of the ingredients listed, plus I'm scared of consuming coconut even though I know it's a healthful fat.)
• South Indian onion chutney (This one was a pretty large influence, I recognize now.)
• Traditional onion chutney (This one also was a pretty large influence.)


• Daily Musings' onion chutney (Again, another big influence.)

Of course, while trying to find images for this entry, I discovered a tomato-onion chutney recipe that I might add to the mix next time. If I were a better foodie and not so much of a faudie, I think I'd be able to have some of Madras Pavillion's onion chutney (served hot when ordered with plated appetizers at dinner but served cold on the lunch buffet, interestingly enough) and know what mix of ingredients to look for in a recipe. But I'm just a faudie--one who's slowly but surely learning.