Wholesome Dips and Spreads: Speedy, Nutritious Chutney Recipes

Chutney is a healthy addition to meal when consumed in moderation and made with nutritious ingredients. 

The healthiness of chutney depends on its ingredients and preparation method. It is a popular spicy dip from Indian cuisine which can be savoured with breakfast to lunch, snack or dinner.

Here, we serve chutney with dosa, idli, upma, pongal, poha etc., for breakfast or can be used as a dip for various fritters or as a spread for sandwiches. 

Before we jump into recipes of varied chutneys, let us consider some important factors that make chutney healthy:

1. Ingredients: Always use fresh fruits, vegetables, and herbs are generally healthier. Avoid excessive amounts of sugar, salt, or unhealthy fats. Ingredients like tomatoes, onions, garlic, cilantro, mint, or various fruits can offer nutritional benefits. 

2. Nutritional Content: Added sweeteners or salt makes chutney high on sugar or sodium.to make a healthier diet have lower sugar and sodium content. 

3. Portion Size: One has to watch and consume chutney in appropriate or in a moderate portion size as excessive consumption can lead to excess calorie intake. 

4. Homemade vs. Store-bought: A store bought chutney have added preservatives, artificial colours, unhealthy additives and taste enhancers. Where as at chutney at home, we have liberty over the ingredients we want to add plus hygienic conditions of preparing. 

In conclusion, chutney can be a healthy addition to a diet when made with nutritious ingredients, consumed in moderation, and paired with balanced meals. However, it's essential to be mindful of ingredients, portion sizes, and overall dietary patterns to ensure that chutney contributes positively to overall health and well-being.

Now, coming to the top three chutney recipes:

Coconut Chutney

Ingredients

⅔ cup Coconut, grated

2 Green chilies

2 tsps fried gram

¼ inch ginger 

4 sprigs Cilantro or Coriander leaves

½ cup Water

¼ teaspoon Salt

tamarind as needed 

½ tsp cumin 

Tempering

1 tsp oil

 ¼ teaspoon mustard seeds

1 broken red chilli

¼ teaspoon cumin seeds

1 sprig curry leaf

pinch of hing

Method: On a medium heat, dry roast both chanal and urad dal until golden and aromatic, turn off and add cumin. 

Cool all of these and add in a mixie jar,along with all the rest of the ingredients and blend to a smooth paste. You can adjust water and salt as desired. Transfer this to a bowl and temper it with the ingredients given below in the tempering.

Tempering: In a pan on medium heat, add oil. Once hot, add mustard seeds. When they start to splutter, add red chilies, curry leaves, and saute for a few seconds. Switch off the flame. Add it to the chutney and mix.

2 Mint Chutney 

Ingredients

½ cup Coconut, grated

½ cup pudina/mint 

2 Green chilies

1 tbsp roasted gram (bhuna chana)

½ inch ginger 

2 garlic cloves

½ tsp cumin

4 sprigs Cilantro or Coriander leaves

½ cup Water

¼ teaspoon Salt

Lemon juice or 1 tsp tamarind paste 

Tempering 

Oil as needed 

1 red chilli broken

¼ tsp mustard

½ tsp urad dal

Pinch of hing

Method: Add all ingredients and blend first, gradually add water little by little.

Add mint leaves, ginger, green chillies, lemon juice, coconut and salt, to blend into coarse chutney. Gradually add water and blend until its smooth. 

Temper: Heat oil in a small pan. Add mustard, cumin and red chillies. When the seeds spluttter, add the curry leaves and hing. Once the leaves turn crisp pour this to the chutney. Give a stir and serve.  

This mint chutney goes well with idlis, kebabs and other snacks. 

3. Tomato Peanut Chutney

This chutney is popular in south and a great side for idli, dosa, uttampam or pessarattu. 

Ingredients 

1 tablespoon Oil

½ teaspoon Cumin seeds

5 Dry red chilies

6 Garlic cloves, chopped roughly

1 tablespoon Dalia or Hurigadale or Putani

¼ cup Peanuts or Groundnut

¼ cup Coconut , grated or chopped

1 Tomato, cut into cubes

2 cloves garlic

½ cup Water

¼ teaspoon Garam masala powder

¼ teaspoon Salt

Temper:

1 tsp oil

1 tsp mustard seeds

2 tsp urab dal 

1 sprig of curry leaves 

1 dry red chile, broken

Method: Heat oil in a pan on a medium heat and saute roughly chopped tomatoes till they are soft and pulpy. 

Transfer it to a plate and heat oil in the same pan.

This time add cumin seeds, after it splutter, add dry red chilles, garlic and saute for a few seconds. Next add dalia, fry peanuts (with no skin), garlic and dried red chillies for 2 minutes. Take it off the flame and let it cool down.

Then add everything to a blender along with salt and pulse it till smooth.

Temper: In a pan on medium heat, add oil. Once hot, add mustard seeds. When they start to splutter, add red chilies, curry leaves, and saute for a few seconds. Switch off the flame. Add it to the chutney and mix.

Why we (business entrepreneurs’) should be aware of social issues

Social issues do interfere with business issues, so the very concept cannot be ignored in a corporate world. No doubt politics do influence social issues but understanding them would help any business to take a safe and effective steps. Each day is brand new day and with each day new laws, regulations , awareness , educational programs , developments take place and with the technology growing @ 3 Gen speed rate and with the slogans popping every other day like ‘karlo duniya muthi mein’, produces opportunities and threats alongside. The emergence of middle class as a powerful socio-economic group in the Indian market needs special attention by the business enterprises.

Business should look strategically into social areas. According to the author of The Corporate Impact of “Addressing on Social Issues ,Alan Dabbs , if they (business) choose to view these social management efforts as an investment rather than an expense, they may well acquire a competitive advantage over companies.” Their influence is enormous and dynamic. Cultural factors contribute for creation of new social environment.

We live in a socio-political-economic system and among all these; ‘social aspect’ must be paid much attention. At the end of the day we ‘build relationships’ with public and ‘create an image’ among public, , hence one by now must have understood the dependence of our business on social and cultural aspects is wide and multi-dimensional. The case study of Camisea natural gas development project stated that with the detailed analysis of key industry-related social issues and processes made a financial sense to them. In value terms, the benefit they expected to fetch was to surpass the cost investment by approximately US$50 million.

To succeed in public relations domain one should always strive to work in a certain environment rather in a suspicious, doubt, lack of friendliness or hatred relations.

Go Social.....

Social media sites by definition means a site that promotes sharing and collaboration right down to the nets grassroots. The idea behind these sites is to have al lot of friends. It’s a virtual social activity network. Also we can use these sites as a powerful strategy for marketing. For example we have most common used social networking sites like – tweeter, orkut,facebook,linkedin , cnngo.com, itimes.com, vogue etc. (if you want to dig more about available social sites please visit the link besides- http://www.doshdosh.com/list-of-social-media-news-websites/)

But why do some corporations or corporate tend to be hesitant or skeptical to go social (new media). Its fine that to get started and to get accustomed requires some time but I think they should at least try to get updated in new media, if not in social media. I feel they should get inspired by Mr D. Shivanand , Police Commissioner of Mumbai, who set up a good example by being active in social media(created a bolg-website) and using it not just for one way (usually all big corporations , corporate and personalities tend to be) but in two way by participating in it . He said, “I feel fortunate that I can reach out to you directly via this simple, yet effective technology. I hope this blog opens up a dialog between the police and the young people of the society.” http://www.egovonline.net/news-list/34-news/7374-mumbai-police-launches-youth-oriented-website-copconnect.html

Well the main idea of setting up this blog-site was

· Step to initiate a communication or a dialogue

· Creating a connection with the youth

· Step to minimize the fear of interaction between people and the police department

· Increases the ability to get the root cause of any issues because it’s a platform for informal communication

· Help the department to be more efficient

· Helps to minimize the time consuming and long process of acquiring various application forms

Here are some reasons why you should consider using social media:

1. It’s natural. Not only do you get natural links without any discernible pattern, your website is exposed to large groups of people in a spontaneous fashion. This differs from paid advertising which has overt commercial overtones.

2. It’s defensible. Once successfully mastered, social communities can be a great source of web traffic on top of any traffic you are already receiving from search engines. While you can’t easily increase your search engine traffic, social media traffic can be very easily controlled through strategic marketing.

3. It’s low-cost/high returns. If done by yourself, costs are limited to only time and perhaps the expenses involved in hiring a freelance programmer/designer. The benefits will often exceed the cost. It would take you thousands of dollars to buy many links; social media has the ability to give you that for free.

4. It complements other efforts. Social media optimization and marketing is usually community-specific. It doesn’t interfere with any other methods of getting traffic to your website. It can and will fit perfectly with an advertising campaign targeting other websites or search engines.

http://www.doshdosh.com/the-importance-of-social-media-marketing/

There is an interesting incident that I came across when I had to interview this PRO guy. According to him, being active in these areas implies indulging into ‘Cheap Publicity / Promotion’.

Well being active in social media doesn’t implies that a particular brand or person is hungry or desperate for simply ‘being famous’ but it means being able to make connection with its public directly. It helps the firm to keep across its own ‘point of view’ to its targeted audience and it limits the possibilities of things to go drift in the process of ‘filtering’. It also helps to stimulate the thinking process in the manner which the sender wants to convey to the receptors and escapes/minimizes a space or chances to mediators’ for any intentional or unintentional manipulations amid the process .

When company is able to create ‘personal touch’ with its public (both internal & external) it surely enjoys good reputation and ensures perpetual progression. It’s worth mentioning here about the great individual Mr. JRD Tata who always used to call his employees by their first names, be it the director, manager, clerk or for that matter an office boy. This is the crucial and best public relations exercise one can practice in their professional life. And the best part is , it’s not restricted to corporate communications managers’ or public relations head, it can be adopted by anybody in an organization.

Since approaching individuals personally or in direct manner creates a great impact hence I see no harm for corporate or corporations involving themselves in these social media sites. Only thing they require here is be transparent, being open about their policies and treat consumers as ‘king’ by replying timely to their queries. Mr. Ivy Ledbetter Lee, the most famous of the early public relations practitioner, believed in open communications with the media, and he was candid and frank in his approach to the press. He understood that good corporate performance was the basis of good publicity ‘being open’ and ‘being transparent’. (http://www.instituteforpr.org/files/uploads/MiniMe_HistoryOfPR.pdf)

Since he believed that business had to tell its story honestly, accurately, and openly in order to win public understanding and support, so why not enjoy this valuable asset i.e. ‘trust’ by going social (in social media sites).