Cilantro Chutney (an herb sauce)

Some yeas ago, Edward Hamann, a culinary expert on food from the Asian subcontinent and a wonderful cooking instructor who is now at Sur La Table, taught a small group of us how to make his fabulous Fresh Cilantro Chutney (Dhaniya ki Chatni ).  I started with his amazing recipe, added turmeric, black pepper, and made a few other minor changes, and that’s how this Cilantro Sauce recipe came to be.

This delicious sauce transforms the ordinary into the extraordinary – and it’s easy to make. We love it! For a while this sauce was the new “ketchup” at our house. I served it with everything from scrambled eggs to pan fried fish, and, of course, curries. In fact, it was this Cilantro Chutney that made me want to learn more about herb sauces and led me to create the other herb/vegetable sauces on this blog: Charmoula, Arugula Pesto, and Artichoke Lemon Pesto.

INGREDIENTS

1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
½ cup freshly squeezed lime juice
¾ cup chopped walnuts
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon and 1 teaspoon peeled and roughly chopped fresh ginger
4 cloves peeled garlic
2 Serrano peppers, stemmed and roughly chopped, including some of the seeds
½ teaspoon ground cumin
¼ – ½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 teaspoons sugar
2 teaspoons ground turmeric
3 bunches (about 7/8 pound) fresh cilantro, including all but the very ends of the stems

Note: I like to add dry ground or finely chopped fresh turmeric (and freshly ground black pepper) wherever I can get away with it. It’s so healthy! Adding 2 teaspoons of ground turmeric to this recipe does not negatively affect the taste, in fact you hardly even notice the turmeric, so why not add it?!

DIRECTIONS

Food processor

Add all the ingredients to the food processor fitted with the metal blade and process to desired consistency.

Blender

Place the ingredients into a blender – in the order given above — but do not put all of the cilantro into the blender at one time. Blend and then add more cilantro and blend again. If needed, stop the blender; push the cilantro down toward the blade; then place the cover on the blender and blend until a lovely smooth sauce results.

HOW TO STORE

• Store in the refrigerator for a few days

• Freeze in 100% food grade silicone muffin pans. When frozen, just pop the frozen “muffins” out, and place them in a plastic freezer bag; store in the  freezer for use anytime.

A FEW OF THE MANY WAYS YOU CAN USE THIS CHUTNEY (SAUCE)…

• Use as a condiment to liven up almost everything, including fish, chicken, eggs, or tofu.
• Use as a hot or cold sauce to go with almost everything.
• Mix with ripe avocado to make a lovely dip or spread. I just put some of this Cilantro Sauce-avocado mixture on slices of daikon and it was fabulous. The next time I need to bring an appetizer to someone’s party, this is what I plan to bring – it’s delicious and a great conversation starter too!
• Sauté any vegetable in olive oil and mix some of this sauce in at the end.
• By the way, I just mixed some of this sauce with some sautéed greens. Superb!
• Add to soups — bean soups, chicken soups, vegetable soups, fish soups.
• Add olive oil to make this sauce into a salad dressing!

Why ginger?

How does ginger help to prevent cancer?

As Dr. Servan-Schreiber states (Anti-Cancer, page 121), “Ginger root also acts as a powerful antiinflamatory and an antioxidant… It acts against certain cancer cells. Moreover, it helps reduce the creation of new blood vessels.” (New blood vessels are necessary for the cancer to grow and spread.)

For more information about ginger, see Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center’s database, “About Herbs Botanicals and Other Products:” Summary information for the consumer and detailed information for the health professional.

Why turmeric AND black pepper?

DRY/POWDERED OR FRESH TURMERIC – PEEL, CHOP, FREEZE AND USE ANYTIME!

Curcumin and other chemicals found in turmeric are powerful anti-inflamatory and anti-cancer agents. However, turmeric can interfere with some chemotherapy treatments and reduce their benefits, so if you are getting chemo (infusion or oral) be sure to check with your doctor about whether it’s OK to add turmeric to your diet.

TURMERIC AND BLACK PEPPER – THE COMBO!

Turmeric and black pepper: Black pepper makes it easier for your body to absorb turmeric. And since turmeric is not easy to absorb, I always add some black pepper to a recipe that calls for turmeric or sprinkle some black pepper over the curry or other turmeric containing food on my plate.

For more information about turmeric and it’s healthful properties (and some cautions)

• Memorial Sloan-Kettering’s website – Integrative Medicine, Herbs. Here you will find all the details and background research on turmeric!
• NIH National Center for Complimentary and Alternative Medicine
• U of Maryland Medical Center – Complimentary Medicine
• Q & A with Andrew Weil, MD and Huffington Post Article by Andrew Weil, MD
• Wall Street Journal article about research on health benefits of turmeric and also which supplements contain most bio-available form of turmeric, bcm-95.

You can buy fresh turmeric at Whole Foods (though you may have to ask them to oder it in for you) and Asian supermarkets.

Fresh turmeric – peel, chop, freeze and use anytime! I buy a few pounds at a time and then process it for storage in my freezer. Here’s how:

Peeling turmeric

• Wash the turmeric to get the dirt off.
• Using a vegetable peeler, peel the skin off; discard the skin.
• Rinse the peeled turmeric with water.
• Place the peeled and rinsed turmeric into the work bowl of a food processor fitted with the metal blade. Process until the turmeric if finely chopped.

Turmeric after processing in food processor

• Line a rectangular storage container with 2 pieces of parchment paper, with the paper overlapping the sides of the container. (The photo below was taken before I found that using 2 pieces of parchment paper, one on top of the other, would make it easier to remove the contents of the container when it’s frozen.)
• Use a spatula to spread just enough of the “grated” turmeric to cover the parchment paper with a thin layer of turmeric.
• Place 2 sheets of parchment paper over the turmeric (with the paper overlapping the sides of the container).
• Spread just enough of the “grated” turmeric to cover the parchment paper with a thin layer of turmeric.
• Repeat until container is full: alternating 2 sheets of parchment paper and one layer of turmeric.

Thin layer of turmeric over parchment paper

• Cover and freeze.
• When frozen, remove all of the turmeric at once from the container, by pulling up on the parchment paper.
• Take this frozen block of turmeric and parchment paper layers and place it into a plastic freezer bag; store in freezer.
• Break off any size chunk anytime!
• Or, you can break the turmeric into pieces before you freeze it, as shown in photo below. However, since I took this photo, I have found that sometimes when I freeze turmeric in pieces as you see in photo below, the turmeric sticks together in large clumps. So I now leave the turmeric pieces in the parchment paper in the freezer bag.

Pieces of frozen turmeric in freezer bag

Note: When using fresh turmeric, use at least about twice as much as you would if you were to use dry powdered turmeric, since it is less concentrated and has a milder flavor. And…remember to always add black pepper to your recipe and serve with food that has some oil or fat!

BTW: Fresh garlic and ginger

I also store fresh garlic and fresh ginger in the same way! Just peel, process, freeze, and store! This way you never run out of the healthy foods you need for cooking!

Want to create some great food using these ingredients? Go to How to Create Fabulous Fresh Herb Sauces!

from left: frozen pieces of garlic, turmeric, ginger

Enjoy and be healthy!

~Leni