Indian Green Chutney

"Green Chutney" is not something you will mistake for "red." It is VERY green. The peoples of the Indian subcontinent make chutneys from all sorts of things, and they serve them as a spread or dip along side their wonderful flatbreads, samosas (fried or baked dough filled with assorted vegetables or meat), or other foods. There are variations to green chutney recipes, and I did articles on "Coriander Chutney"* (coriander is better known as "cilantro" in much of North and South America) and "Mint Chutney,** both of which certainly fall into the category of "green chutneys."

 

Ingredients:

 

1 cup fresh coriander/cilantro (no big stems or stalks)

1/3 cup fresh mint leaves

1 or 2 green chilies, like serrano or jalapeno (stems removed)

2 garlic cloves

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 inch piece peeled ginger

3/4 teaspoon ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon salt

(optional) 1/2 teaspoon sugar

few drops of water, IF NEEDED to thin the chutney

 

Put all ingredients, except water, into a blender/food processor. Process the ingredients until smooth, adding a few drops of water if needed to thin out the chutney, but not so that it's watery. 

 

 

* This is the link to the recipe for "Coriander Chutney": https://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2018/10/indian-coriander-chutney.html

 

 ** This is the link to the recipe for "Mint Chutney": https://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2017/07/indian-mint-chutney.html

WORD HISTORY:

Casual-This adjective is related to "case" (the noun form with the meaning "state or condition of something," also, "an event or happening," as in, "in this case, we mean this word"), a word of Latin derivation borrowed by English via French, and to "chance," another Latin word borrowed by English via French. "Casual" goes back to Indo Europian "kad/khad," which meant, "to fall." This gave Latin "cadere," meaning, "to fall, to sink, to perish, to die, to befall, to fall to or upon;" that is, "to occur, to happen." One of its participle base forms was "cas-," which served as the basis of the noun "casus," meaning more literally, "a falling down(ward)," but often used more figuratively to mean, "a mishap, a chance happening," as well as, "a grammatical case," as in "dative case." This then produced the Latin adjective "casualis," meaning, "(in reference to something) by chance, by opportunity," which passed to Latin-based French as "casuel," and this then was borrowed by English in the late 1300s with the same "by chance" meaning; thus also, "unpredictable." By the second half of the 1800s, the notion of "unpredictable" developed the use of "casual" for people who were "careless or undependable in their actions, work or attitude." Its use for clothing developed in the very late 1800s. (Note: "Casual" is a very close relative of "casualty," and I'll be posting its history soon.)