Spicy "Apple & Red Pepper" Chutney

Day3 of BM#10: A couple of months ago I took my son for apple picking. The orchards in Northeast were badly hit by a major hail storm  that happened a week prior. Almost 80% of the apples were badly bruised and had black spots on them. :-(. Inspite of hearing about it I went cause I felt bad for those Orchard owners. It was a big challenge to pick bruise-free apples.We came back home with a just a bag of apples instead of 3 or 4 which was the norm everytime we went for apple picking.

Here is what I did with those apples I brought home: I made some apple sauce which I used to make my Vegan Pumpkin apple muffins, then substitued apple filling instead of berries in Lattice-Topped Berry Tart I posted a few months ago. I still had a few leftovers out of which a couple ended up in this chutney- I frequently made mini pepper chutney as sides for Idli/Dosa this summer and wanted to add apples this time. The only change I had to make was to increase the amount of chilies to even out the sweet taste of apples. That's it!

MacIntosh Apple Tree at March Farms:These ripe red macIntosh apples on this tree miraculously espaced the hail storm.A few of those ended up in my bag that I brought home. :-):

Way3 To Maintain A Healthy Level of Insanity:  Put Your Garbage Can On Your Desk And Label It "In Box." ;-)

What you need for the chutney:

Ingredients:

• 2 Red MacIntosh Apples
• 1 Medium Red Onion, peeled and cut into small chunks
• 8-10 Mini Red Peppers, seeds and membranes removed
• 1" Ginger, peeled and cut diced
• 2 Small Cloves Garlic
• Marble sized Tamarind, cleaned
• 4-5 or less/more Dry Red Chili
• 2 Green Chili
• 2 Stalks Curry Leaves, stems removed
• 3 Tbsp Olive Oil

For tempering(Optional):

• 1 Tsp Mustard Seeds
• 1 Tsp Split Black Gram/ Urad Dhal
• 1 Stalk Curry Leaves
• 1 Tsp Olive Oil

Procedure(Tried with yellow and red mini peppers. Using Red peppers alone gives that intense red color and the taste is much better than that of the Yellow + Red Pepper combo):

• Add the Oil to a wide saute pan. Throw in the cut onions, garlic, ginger, red chili, green chili and curry leaves.Saute till the onions are browned.

• Add the cut peppers and saute till they are browned at edges

• Add the cut apples to the pan.

• Saute till they are browned.The chutney tastes better if they are well and truly browned.

• Add the tamarind at the very end. Switch off stove and sprinkle some salt.

• Grind the whole contents and check for taste.

• Move it to a serving bowl.Tempering is entirely optional.If opting, just fry the mustard seeds, Hing, urad dhal and curry leaves. Pour it over the chutney. I skipped it this time. Enjoy it with hot idli, dosa and such.

Enjoy!