Strawberry Ginger Chutney: Sweet Sour and Spicy

Strawberry chutney with a hint of ginger flavor will surprise you with its sweet, sour and spicy flavours; all at the same time! Use this strawberry chutney to enhance the flavors of your wraps, sandwiches and salads. Relish with your next barbecue food, grilled vegetables and paneer tikka. This strawberry ginger chutney is also chutney is also delicious when used with Indian street food and chat recipes. Combination possibilities are endless with Strawberry Ginger Chutney.

When strawberry season comes, I try to incorporate more and more strawberries in our diet. Though the best way to enjoy strawberries is just the way they are. Unfortunately, my family is not a big fan of strawberry as fruit, so I have to come up with different ways of incorporating strawberries in my family diet.

Alternative to Tamarind Chutney

During the lockdown period, I ran out of my regular tamarind dates meethi chutney also known as saunth. Since we were trying our best not to go to Indian store for grocery shopping to get Indian groceries (we don’t have online Indian grocery delivery facility where we live), I tried making this Strawberry chutney with similar spices we use to make tamarind meethi chutney. It came out delicious!

First time when I prepared to test this strawberry chutney, I did not add any ginger in it, but then felt that ginger will definitely enhance the flavor profile of this chutney. So immediately, I tried next batch with ginger in it and loved the gingerly flavor of this chutney.

Everyone loved this chutney. While my elder one like it with her samosas, Dr. A enjoys it on his wraps. I, myself can relish this in all possible ways I can, but my favorite is to top it on my dahi papadi plate.

Instant Pot Makes it Easy

I have used Instant Pot to cook this Strawberry chutney using all-natural ingredients. This recipe doesn’t require any sort of preservative, since it is cooked so well that it stays well in refrigerator for long time. I have not tried to store this chutney at room temperature so can’t say about the shelf life at room temperature.

To cook this strawberry chutney you need to macerate the strawberries first, then pressure cook the strawberries in their own juices and then reduce it to desired thickness. While, cooking process seems long the actual active time involved is very less.

When cooking in instant pot you don’t have to baby sit the cooking process which makes it super easy to prepare.

What is Maceration?

Maceration is the process of softening or sweetening a fruit by soaking in a liquid.  Fruit can be macerated in a liquid such as balsamic vinegar, liquor or using lemon juices and sugar. The sugar pulls out the juices of the fruit forming a syrup. This maceration helps to cook strawberries in its own juices.

To macerate the strawberries, place clean, hulled, sliced fruit into a bowl and sprinkle with sugar.  The amount of sugar can vary depending on how ripe your fruit is and how sweet you want your end product to be.

How to prepare Strawberry Ginger Chutney in Instant Pot?

Cooking strawberry chutney in Instant pot is a breeze. There is no baby sitting required when cooking this chutney in Instant Pot.  Its convenient,  hands free and hassle free at the same time. All it takes five steps to  relish this delicious.

1. Prepping of Strawberries: wash, hull and halved the strawberries.
2. Maceration of Strawberries: Soak the strawberries with sugar, lime juice and salt at least for 30 minutes.
3. Pressure cooking of Strawberries: Pressure cook strawberries in its juices just for one minute on high pressure.
4. Adding spices and simmering of pressure cooked strawberries: add spices and let the concoction reduce until desired thickness
5. Blending the reducing chutney: Lastly blend or mash the reduced concoction and done.

Tips to remember while making Strawberry Ginger Chutney

Keep these tips in mind for best results when you are prepping and making Strawberry chutney:

1. Since non organic strawberries falls under dirty dozen produce (source: https://www.ewg.org/foodnews/dirty-dozen.php), I would highly recommend you to use organic strawberries.
2. Please do not skip the step of maceration of strawberries.
3. You can use your choice of sweetner and certainly use jaggery powder, coconut sugar, or raw brown sugar. But the darker the sweetner will be in  colour the darker the strawberry chutney would be and will loose its vibrant color. Over here I have used raw light brown Kirkland brand sugar to maintain the color of chutney.
4. Quantity of sweetner will vary depending on how sweet or tart strawberries are. Also quantity of sweetner can be adjust as per your taste. But what I have realized you would at least need ½ cup of sweetner per 1 lb. of strawberries.

5. When talking about spices as mentioned above don’t skip ginger, roasted cumin powder(see notes how to make roasted cumin powder at home)  and black rock salt. Black rock salt or kala namak is easily available at amazon or if you any Indian store nearby you can also find it there.

6. Always blend the strawberries towards the end of reduction period to reduce the splattering of pureed strawberries. If you blend them before, then the pureed strawberries will splatter too much and make mess.

Notes: How to make roasted cumin powder at home?

Making roasted cumin powder at is very easy, just roast handful of cumin seeds on low heat in a pan, keep stiring for even browning and brown until you start getting nice aroma and dark brown color. Switch of the heat and let them cool down a bit, and then grind them into powder using a spice grinder or dry jar of nutribullet. Store in a clean and dry jar for later use.

Ingredients for Strawberry Ginger Chutney:

Produce:

• Strawberry: 1 Lb.
• Ginger: 1 oz.
• Lime/Lemon Juice: 2 Tablespoon

Spices:

• Sugar: ½ cup
• Salt: 1 tsp (adjust as per taste)
• Roasted Cumin Seeds Powder (Bhuna Jeera): 1 Teaspoon
• Black Rock Salt (Kala Namak): ½ Teaspoon (powdered)
• Red Chili Powder (Lal Mirch Powder): ½ Teaspoon
• Red Chili Flakes: 1 teaspoon

Method:

1. Wash, hull and slice strawberries and add to Instant Pot’s inner pot.
2. Then add sugar, lime or lemon juice, salt give them a good stir. Let them rest at room temperature until juices are released, at least 30 minutes.
3. After 30-40 minutes, during this maceration process strawberries will release all their natural juice.
4. Once the maceration process is over, close the lid of the Instant Pot and pressure cook on high level for one minute, NPR.
5. When all the pressure is released and the pressure pin pops down, remove the lid and switch to sauté mode on normal heat level to reduce the concoction of strawberries and juices.
6. After 15 minutes of reduction add grated ginger, roasted cumin powder, black rock salt, red chili powder and chili flakes.
7. For smoother texture, blend the strawberries using immersion blender with all the spices. If you prefer chunky texture of chutney use potato masher instead to mash the cooked strawberries.
8. Let the chutney simmer on sauté mode for few more minutes to achieve the spreadable thick consistency. 
9. To check if the consistency is thick enough, it should coat the spatula.
10. Once achieve the desired thickness, turn off the Instant Pot and allow the Strawberry Chutney to cool down completely.
11. Transfer this strawberry chutney to clean and dry glass jars and store in refrigerator.
12. Use it in sandwiches, serve along your barbecue or top it on your favorite Indian chat.

“For pleasure has no relish unless we share it.” 

― Virginia Woolf, The Common Reader

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